Beautiful Destroyer
by Slavok
Summary: Kelsier spoke of a world before the Lord Ruler, a world where plants were green and ash didn't fall from the sky. That was crazy, of course, and even if such a world did exist, Vin knew she would never see one. But she had been wrong before, and Louise de La Valliere needed a familiar.
1. Chapter 1

Beautiful Destroyer

Chapter One

"I don't really expect to live until the end of the year anyway."  
-Mistborn

When someone tells you you're not ready to infiltrate the Lord Ruler's palace, you should listen. But clinging to a spire of Kredik Shaw, rain pattering through the mists, the gash in her side bleeding out, Vin didn't think she'd last long enough to learn from her mistake.

If the Inquisitors were after her, then they were already done with Kelsier. That thought was even more terrifying than the image of the Inquisitors themselves, with iron spikes nailed through their eye sockets. And if those creatures could defeat Kelsier so easily, what chance did she have?

Lord Ruler, Vin needed a miracle. But that was the problem with trying to overthrow God; it made miracles hard to come by.

No, what she needed was a place to hide and something to bandage her wound, or at least a lot more pewter than what she had flaring in her stomach. She felt something slam into the spire above her, and she launched herself into the darkness without checking what it was.

How did he find her? She was burning copper to hide her Allomancy and the only metal on her was in her ear or in her stomach–or in her hands. Of course! The book she had picked up earlier had bits of metal in the cover. Not much, but enough to show the Inquisitor where she was. She flared iron, pulling herself to the next spire and Steelpushed the book into the distance. And from that spire she jumped to a second one, a third.

With copper burning in her stomach, no metal on her, and the night so dark and pouring rain, the Inquisitor wouldn't be able to see, hear, or sense her.

But a moment later, he found her anyway, an obsidian ax missing her by inches. _How?_ It should have been impossible, but there he was, a black figure sillouetted by the black night, metal spikes reflecting what light there was.

She Pushed off the spire, but not quickly enough. The Inquisitor grabbed her and slammed her against the roof with inhuman strength. The numbness in her body vanished, replaced by pain. She felt moments away from passing out–she should have already, she should have _died_ already–so she flared tin to keep conscious.

She drew a dagger and stabbed the Inquisitor's arm. It had no more effect on him than when Kelsier had stabbed one in the neck, less even, but it broke his grip. She tumbled away and fell.

And then she saw a light. It seemed as bright as the sun to her tin-enhanced eyes, lime green and a perfect circle. And right beneath her.

She fell into it, her eyes clenched shut against the blinding light, and hit … something soft. And dry.

She squinted her eyes open and saw light so bright she had to douse her tin. It was … day time. How? Had she passed out? And the ground she had landed on, it was _green_ , greener than anything she had ever seen, tiny plants covering the ground like a noble's rug. There was a crowd around her, people she didn't know wearing clothes she didn't recognize, and the sky was blue, like it was made out of a giant sapphire.

 _Where am I?_ She felt numb all over, her wound throbbing, bleeding, but not as much as before. That was a good sign, right? Or was she just running out of blood? But at least it didn't hurt as much. Like a dream. The impossible sky matched that.

"Founder, she's hurt!" Someone was hurt? That wasn't good, but Vin had enough problems of her own. "Someone, get a healer!" That sounded nice. Vin could use one of those.

She realized that her eyes were closed. Odd, she thought she was still staring at the sky. The blue sky. There was something about that, but she didn't want to think right now. She just wanted to ….

She was dying, wasn't she? An Inquisitor after her, a mortal wound, a bright light, and now she was in the afterlife from one of the five hundred different religions Sazed had tried to convert her to.

Well, it didn't seem so bad. She felt something brush against her lips, and that was all she knew.

WWW

Louise regretted kissing the girl she had summoned as soon as she had done the deed. She had asked for a familiar that was beautiful and powerful, and the Founder had blessed her with one that was dying.

She didn't want to perform the summoning ritual again. Each time she had tried before she hadn't even gotten that much as a result, so she finished the ritual and sealed the commoner as hers. That way, even if she did die, Louise could claim that she had already completed the ritual and she wouldn't be required to do so again.

But as the runes burnt themselves into the girl's hand, causing her to writhe unconscious in pain, Louise worried that the shock might finish her off. The commoner she had summoned didn't look any older than her, and the wound in her side looked deadly, assuming one needed kidneys to live, and blood soaked into her already drenched shirt and gray tasselled cloak.

She needn't have worried. As soon as Mr. Colbert reached them, he ignited his staff and burned the wound closed. Fire magic was not designed for healing. Water was better, but a water mage would need to gather ingredients, empower them with magic, mix them into a potion, and make the patient drink it, all while her familiar was bleeding to death. Fire might not be gentle, but it _was_ quick.

The smell of burnt flesh and blood still made Louise gag, though, and her familiar spasmed and gasped without waking up. But she didn't stop breathing. She was still alive.

A healer arrived, examined the injuries, and prescribed an elixir to speed blood clotting and production and tissue mending. It would cost a fortune and if her familiar died Louise could summon another one, a familiar more suited to her needs than a peasant girl, but Louise didn't want another one. Maybe she was just being stubborn, but she _didn't_.

The day ended, and Louise had her familiar, still comatose, moved to her own bed as she healed. What had the girl been doing to win her such injuries? Louise would have to ask her when she woke up. As well as, like, her _name_.

But her familiar didn't wake up the next morning, though she was still alive. Louise had a servant wash and mend her bloodied, cut up clothes, though Louise changed the bandages herself. The girl's effects told a story, one that the familiar was too hurt to share. A pair of glass daggers that, while razor sharp, would be more brittle than metal. A charcoal gray cloak, not a noble's mantle but something deliberately cut up and layered with tassels on the outside and pockets filled with empty vials on the inside. What the story meant, well, Louise would have to wait.

And so she waited. She went to class just like before, and while she didn't have an exotic animal to show off like her classmates, at least those classmates were sufficiently courtesy-bound to refrain from mocking her for the injured commoner in her room. And at the end of the day, she returned to said injured commoner and changed her bandages.

She could have delegated the administrations to someone else, but she liked to be involved. This was _her_ familiar lying on _her_ bed, and _she_ wasn't going to let her die.

WWW

A/n At this point in the book, Kelsier has mentioned that plants were supposed to be green, but he hasn't shown her his picture of a flower. Vin has been to her first ball only and has met Elend once, so she has adequate training at impersonating a noblewoman. It's been mentioned that she has a good memory and is a fast learner, so I'm assuming that she has memorized the right Allomantic ratios for the different metals.

Also, thank you to Magery and Stone Mason for editing this chapter and for encouraging to write it in the first place. I know the first chapter it kind of short, but you can expect the second one soon. The title is a reference to what Ruin called Vin in Hero of Ages. I don't know how well it fits for the story, but my first idea was Familiar of the Mists, which was pretty boring.


	2. Chapter 2

Beautiful Destroyer

Chapter Two

"Everything should be green."  
-Mistborn

Vin woke up, her body a single, massive ache. What happened? Did she do something wrong? Reen always beat her when she drew attention to herself or spoke up when she was supposed to stay silent.

 _It's the only way you'll learn._

Vin stirred, and realized that she was lying on a mattress instead of a mat or the hard floor. _Of course._ Reen had been gone for ages, and Vin was at Renoux manor, pretending to be Lady Valette. And she hurt so much because … because of the Steel Inquisitor. She remembered following Kelsier to the Lord Ruler's palace.

She didn't remember coming back.

She forced herself to sit up, ignoring the protests of her body, and looked around. She _wasn't_ in her room at the manor, she was someplace she didn't recognize at all. The room was a bit smaller than what she had at Renoux manor, but still more lavish than anyone needed, and the bed was just as soft. A new hideout?

Well, she wouldn't get anywhere by lying around. She didn't think Kelsier would leave her behind like her previous crew leaders, but sleeping in made her nervous, and she had questions.

A large bandage covered her side where an Inquisitor's obsidian ax had hacked into her, and the wound was mostly healed. She didn't know who had tended to her injuries, probably Sazed, but whoever it was seemed to have undressed her before putting her to bed, leaving her in her undergarments. Some people found that more comfortable, and maybe for people who could take privacy for granted it made sense, but to Vin, it was just more practical to sleep in her clothes.

As she made her way to the wardrobe, or armoire, as nobles might have preferred, she glanced out an open window.

And into a blue sky. Not a sky stained with ash, but a pure, crystal blue, with a sun that was yellow instead of red. And below that … a green field.

Everything was so much more vivacious and vibrant than she had thought possible, colors so bright that Vin didn't know they existed beyond a noblewoman's gown. It was impossible, so strange, so wrong, so … right.

Kelsier had mentioned a time when plants were green instead of brown and grew more fertile in the wild than cultivated gardens did now.

And there it was. Right in front of her.

 _Where am I?_ Not in Renoux manor, that was for sure. She wasn't even in the Central Dominance. Kelsier couldn't have brought her here.

So who did?

Well, she wouldn't find out in this room. She opened the wardrobe to get dressed. As Lady Valette, she wore ball gowns, each a different cut and color, beautiful, unique, _foolish_. Here, the wardrobe was full of identical white shirts and black skirts.

And in the bottom drawer, she found her own clothes. And her mistcloak.

She yearned to put them on, not just to wear her good, practical shirt and trousers, worn enough so she didn't need to worry about keeping them clean, but to be _Mistborn_ again.

But she didn't. Kelsier gave the night to her with its deep shadows and swirling mists, but during the day with no metal, she was just Vin the skaa thief. Or … someone else.

She put on the shirt and skirt, looking out the window to check the clothes of those she saw down below her. She added a plain black cape and long socks, but she didn't have any shoes besides her own boots, which clashed with the outfit. Going barefoot would clash worse, so she wore them anyway.

It was hard to tell much from the people down below between the distance and the angle, but she felt, if not confident with her appearance, then at least close enough. Their clothes were uniform, white shirts and plain capes, so she didn't think she'd stand out too much. Certainly less than she would in a mistcloak.

She checked her appearance in a mounted mirror above the washbasin. She felt sore, but her reflection didn't show any marks or bruises. She started to comb her matted hair when she took back that conclusion. She had a mark, a big one on her left hand. It wasn't a scar or a tattoo, but a brand. She didn't recognize the symbols, but it looked almost like writing.

She stood with her back straight, prim posture like a noblewoman, and hid her left hand behind her cape. It looked … mostly natural. The skirt was much shorter than what she had seen and worn in Luthadel, but maybe the fashions were different in a world where the sky was blue and the plants were green. Yes, in Luthadel noblewomen didn't show anything above their ankles, but they wore daring necklines. Here, maybe they wore daring hemlines instead and buttoned their shirts up to their necks.

Before she left, she took her own clothes and mistcloak and stuffed them behind the dresser so if someone discovered that she had left, they would be looking for someone dressed in trousers.

She brought her daggers with her though, tucking them in the back of her skirt hidden by her cape. Lady Valette, because that was who she was impersonating right now, might not walk about armed, but that persona was only skin deep. Deep down, she was still Vin, and no matter how she dressed, walked, or talked, she always would be.

She glanced at her reflection one last time before leaving, and she went to find out where in the Lord Ruler's name she was.

WWW

Vin remembered the first and only ball she had attended in Venture keep, under those vaulting arches and stained glass windows. Where she found herself now was nothing like that. The building was noble of course; the beds alone were too good for skaa, the halls too clean. But right next to her room she found dozens of identical ones, all equally furnished. She waited outside the door before peeking in, listening for inhabitants, but each room was empty.

Hearing footsteps, she closed the door and adopted a noblewoman's posture, trying not to look out of place. A servant came around the corner in a black dress and white apron. Neither made direct eye contact; Vin didn't because the affairs of servants were beneath Lady Valette, and the servant didn't because she bought the whole facade.

Perfect. The servant recognized Vin's cape and skirt, so she didn't check her face. Hopefully everyone else would be as accepting.

She went down a stairwell to the ground floor. It wasn't enough that she be seen and ignored. She needed to overhear things, and if she was feeling bold, she needed to be able to direct a conversation.

She reached the bottom of the manor–no, the _tower_ , she was in a tower surrounded by an outer wall–and stepped out onto a green field.

The people were dressed as she was, or close enough so she couldn't tell the difference, and the few members of the nobility who glanced her way didn't stop to stare. They were all about her age, some were standing, others were sitting at tables. The tables had plates with bits of food left over and half empty glasses of wine reminding her how hungry she was, but one thing that a noblewoman never was, was hungry. Lady Valette might feel peckish at times, but with three square meals a day, she was never desperate.

She focused on the nobility to distract herself. They were accompanied by a surprising number of pets. Cats and dogs scurried around their feet, and a number of the nobility had birds perched on their shoulders. And then there were creatures Vin didn't recognize, things she could only describe as monsters, like floating creatures made up of eyes and tentacles, or a lizard as big as a horse with its tail on fire.

None of the nobles paid the creatures much heed, though some stopped to scratch an animal behind the ears or stroke its head. They separated into cliques, though, and that at least was familiar. At the ball, the more powerful houses had more extravagant gowns; here, with everyone dressed alike, Vin had to go by more subtle cues, but that didn't mean they weren't there. Some stood while others sat, some spoke while others listened.

She wanted to hide, just like before her first ball, and _there_ she had weeks of training for that precise social setting and Sazed watching over her. But … but if these people had wanted to hurt her, they could have done so while she was asleep. That didn't mean that she could trust them; no one took in an injured girl without wanting something in return, and Vin wanted to know what before she confronted them– _if_ she confronted them.

It would be so much easier if she had metals. But she had survived as a simple skaa thief before, and she hadn't grown so dependent on Allomancy to be crippled without it.

As she considered what to do next, how to ingratiate herself into a group without anyone recognizing her as out of place, a garden caught her eye–a garden unlike any other. In Luthadel plants that weren't brown were rare and treasured, but this garden put them all to shame.

There was no hint of brown, and the plants grew into cup shaped patterns, their leaves in every color imaginable. Red as blood, golden yellow, blue, purple, and all of it before a backdrop of green. She knew she shouldn't gawk. Proper young ladies, Sazed had told her, didn't gawk, and Lady Valette would have seen such gardens before. But still ….

"The flowers are beautiful in the spring," came a voice from behind her, deliberate, interested. "But not half so beautiful as you."

She looked up and gave the newcomer, a blonde boy her age in a frilly shirt, and gave him a pleasant smile, but inside she was screaming. She had stood out, the exact opposite of what she wanted to do.

"I don't believe I've had the pleasure of making your acquaintance." He held one of the strange plants in his hand, a narrow, stiff stem with layers of bright red leaves at the end. "I am Lord Guiche de Gramont. What may I call you?"

Well, there was only one thing to do. "Lady Valette Renoux. How kind of you to ask." _Please go away._

"Lady Valette," he repeated, as though tasting the name. He bowed slightly, but Vin suspected that was just an excuse to eye the hemline of her skirt. "Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I do not believe you were enrolled last year."

Enrolled? "What makes you say that?"

"Why, because I would have seen you," he said, a self satisfied smile on his face. "And I never forget a pretty face."

Pretty face? Vin had seen her reflection, and there were plenty of girls more attractive than her. Was he flirting with her because she looked like an easy mark, lost and vulnerable, or did he suspect something? Well, if he suspected her, then her disguise was already lost.

"You flatter me, Lord Guiche. I'm sure a man of your standing has more important matters to attend to." She didn't know what his standing was, but he seemed self important enough to accept a compliment without question. But if he was intent on bothering her …. She nodded toward the main crowd. "They seem happy."

"Yes, why wouldn't they be? I suspect the celebrations may go on for the rest of the week."

Celebrations? She wished she had some brass to Soothe him into talkativeness. She could prod him verbally, but the wrong word could give her away. "That long?"

He nodded. "After that, they'll realize that all they summoned was an ordinary pet who still fails to understand the importance of the litter box." His eyes gleamed. "Not me, though. Behold _my_ familiar! Rise, Verdandi!"

Vin jumped as the ground exploded at her feet, and brown creature with round, black eyes and claws nearly as long as her forearm appeared. Her heart raced and she found herself clutching one of the daggers behind her back, but Guiche fell to his knees and hugged the thing like an old friend.

"Ah, sweet Verdandi," he said. "Tell me, Valette, have you ever seen anything like him?"

Vin swallowed and let go of the dagger. "No." It was the first honest thing she said.

Guiche stood up and brushed dirt off his clothes. "What did you summon, if I may ask? I notice you didn't bring your familiar with you."

Vin looked down at the creature. With the shock worn off, it didn't look so intimidating, more like a giant mouse. With claws. Still, if Vin was expected to have a creature like that she certainly hadn't found it in that bedroom.

"I confess, my lord, my familiar is not as magnificent as yours." When in doubt, resort to flattery.

Guiche smiled. "Yes, he is quite impressive, isn't he? But no matter what you summoned, it can't be as bad as what Louise the Zero produced."

"Oh?" She needed to direct the conversation away from her. "And what was that?"

He looked up in surprise. "You haven't heard? I assumed that the story would have spread to everyone by now."

"Oh, I've heard conflicting accounts." Total ignorance would have been suspicious. "I wonder what really happened." She had no interest in aristocratic gossip or the creatures they called familiars, but as long as he wasn't asking about her, her disguise was safe.

"I know exactly what happened," he said. "She summoned hers on the same day I summoned dear Verdandi here, though not nearly with so majestic a result. _She_ ended up with a common peasant girl. Yes, you heard me, a peasant. Half dead too, barely survived being sealed, as though even then the girl knew that being Louise's familiar was a fate worse than death." He gave a weak laugh. "Um, that sounded better in my head. But why are we talking about Louise? Tell me more about you."

Vin opened her mouth. And closed it again. Familiar? Like the Verdandi creature? That explained why she was here, almost. But how? How could she have been brought from the middle of Luthadel to this strange, green, _beautiful_ world?

But she couldn't ask directly how a familiar was summoned. Lady Valette would already know that.

"What is this?" It was a new voice, feminine, sharp. "Why is it that whenever I turn my back on you for more than five minutes, Guiche, I always find you chatting up the nearest thing in a skirt?"

"What?" he said to the newcomer, a blond girl with long, spiralling hair. "I wasn't … this isn't … I must say, you look radiant today, Montmorency, and is that a new perfume I smell?"

"You think I'm joking when I talk about carving my name into your forehead, but I'm not!" The girl, Montmorency, grabbed him by the ear and dragged him away. "Now get over here and fawn over me in public. That's why I put up with you, remember?"

While Guiche was bigger than her and he didn't seem comfortable with the situation, he didn't fight back and neither seemed to think that the situation was unusual. Was this what was considered normal behavior for noblewomen? If so, Sazed's lessons were going to be woefully inadequate.

Still, even if she didn't have all the answers yet, at least she had some better questions. She stood out, but she didn't immediately arouse suspicion, and she was brought here by someone named Louise the Zero. What this Louise wanted with her or _how_ she brought her to an entirely different world, she had no idea.

Louise herself would know, but Vin knew her disguise wouldn't work on her. She may have been responsible for healing her and could very well have saved her life, but that could mean that Louise was a kind person– _don't be foolish,_ Reen's voice whispered–or she wanted something big from her.

Part of her wanted to run. When she was with Reen, they had always been traveling, never staying in one place long enough to get to know anyone, never long enough for people to get to know them. She could leave, exit through the main gate and find a road to (hopefully) a city where she could be completely anonymous. Dressed as a noblewoman, she didn't think anyone would stop her, but with no money and no metals, she wouldn't last long.

She could go back to her room and wait for Louise to show up, but depending on what she wanted from her, that could be agreeing to her terms.

A servant in a black dress and white apron carrying a tray full of dishes passed by her, nodding in respect as she hurried off. A servant … who would be expected to answer questions when a noblewoman asked them without asking any in return. If Vin could phrase the questions well enough to not make her suspicious ….

"Hold a moment, girl," she said. "I require a word with you."

The servant stopped. She had straight black hair and blue eyes, and she was surprisingly pretty. Skaa girls tried to look as plain as possible, and in Vin's experience the only thing worse than catching the eye of a fellow crew member was catching the eye of a nobleman. For a moment, she wasn't sure if the servant was actually skaa or just lesser nobility.

Either way, the girl's expression and posture accepted Vin as her superior. "Yes, your ladyship?"

"I need an unbiased opinion," she said, thinking quickly. "What do you know about familiars?"

"Familiars, your ladyship?" She shifted the weight of her tray. "Not much I'm afraid. Just the basics." _Perfect._ "They exist to serve the mage who summons them. The stronger ones can fight and protect their masters, but more often they act as eyes and ears."

So Louise expected her to be a servant. Well, that wasn't so bad. Vin had never been a servant to a noblewoman before, but it couldn't be worse than working for some of the crew leaders she had passed through. Still, after working with _Kelsier_ , after becoming _Mistborn_ , could she go back to the girl she was before?

No. What Kelsier had given her would be a part of her for the rest of her life. Assuming that she could get her hands on the Allomantic metals again.

"Very good," Vin said. "And you understand how familiars arrive here, correct?"

The servant nodded. "Oh, yes your ladyship. I saw some of the summoning ritual last week."

Vin waited for her to elaborate, but the servant said nothing more. Lord Ruler, it was frustrating! There was a ritual? She forced herself to smile with the self-assured calm of nobility. "And you know where those familiars were beforehand, yes?"

The servant frowned, growing uneasy. "I thought they were from everywhere, weren't they? Forgive me, I'm no expert, but many of the creatures that have been summoned aren't native to Tristain."

Tristain? Was that the name of where she was? Well, that was something, but was Tristain the name of the immediate area or a broader geography? For all she knew, Tristain was the name of the world and the people here brought creatures from beyond all the time. It was a tidbit, and eventually all the tidbits would form a whole picture. If Vin didn't strangle everyone to death beforehand.

"May I ask what you wanted my opinion on?" the servant asked. She sounded polite and timid, but she had other duties.

"Of course," Vin said. It didn't matter what she asked. She already got enough information from the girl already, and asking too many questions from one person would give that person too much of an idea of what she needed to know. "In your unbiased opinion, knowing what you do about familiars, what would be ideal?"

The servant looked from side to side. "Ideal, your ladyship? Is that a trick question? I thought all familiars were ideal, selected and given by the Founder, aren't they? Some might be stronger than others, but even the Headmaster's mouse is perfectly suited to him in its own way." She smiled slightly. "This year, someone even summoned a …." She trailed off, then she let out a yelp, dropping the tray with a clatter. "You! You're her! You're the … oh Founder!"

 _Bloody hell._ Should she run? Could she? "Look, I need you to calm down and _not_ draw attention to yourself." She looked over her shoulder and saw some nobles watching them with vague interest and some servants watching with slight concern.

"But … but every time I cleaned that room, you were lying in bed. What are you doing up? Why are you dressed like a noblewoman?"

"Look, I can explain. I can explain everything, but first I need you to understand something."

"Yes?"

"I don't want to hurt you."

"You … don't want to hurt me?"

"No. Not in the least." With her body still sore from her injuries, no metal, and a crowd of people watching her, hurting the servant was the last thing she wanted to do, but hopefully the girl wouldn't call her bluff.

"Good," she said finally. She swallowed. "I, um, I don't want you to hurt me either." She knelt down and gathered dishes back into the tray. Should Vin help? It might help build goodwill, but it would also arouse suspicion from everyone watching.

"I woke up today," Vin explained, "and I found myself in a room I've never seen before. Supposedly I'm expected to be a familiar for someone named Louise."

"And you thought the best thing to do was to dress up like a noblewoman?"

Vin didn't answer. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, and she would only get in trouble if she got caught. Which she had, putting herself in this girl's power. _Idiot!_ On the bright side, the servant might want to extort her instead of turn her in.

"What would you do," Vin asked, "in my position?"

The servant stood up, tray in hand. "I don't know. Probably just wait until someone told me what was going on. I'd be less likely to get in trouble that way. My name's Siesta, by the way. What's yours?"

She seemed more at ease now that she knew she wasn't speaking with a noblewoman. "Vin. And after finding out that you were supposed to be someone's familiar?"

Siesta smiled. "Again, I don't know. You're the only human familiar I've ever heard of, but I can't imagine that your responsibilities would be that different from mine, only you'd be in the service of a single noble instead of the whole academy. A lot of work, but I've never minded work."

"And if you had to run away? Where would you go?" The skaa underground was spread across the entire Central Dominance at least, and that was how she and Reen had traveled freely growing up. There had to be something similar here.

Siesta's eyes widened. "Do you want to?"

"I …." Did she? "I don't like feeling trapped."

Siesta nodded. "Well, if you need to, my uncle owns a tavern in the city. He takes in girls like you with nowhere to go. I could give you directions, if you like."

The city … you could get lost in the city, forgotten. There, Vin's stunt of impersonating a noblewoman wouldn't follow her. "What's the catch?"

"The catch? Well, you'd have to work as a barmaid, I suppose. I don't think I could do it, but my cousin does, and she tells me the money's good if you know what you're doing."

Barmaids got _paid_? In the Final Empire, only skilled skaa craftsmen like Clubs got paid. Maybe Siesta really was part of the lesser nobility.

Siesta hesitated before speaking again. "Have you, um, met the mage who summoned you?"

Mage? That seemed like another word for noble. "No. I heard she was called Louise the Zero. Can you tell me anything about her?"

Siesta frowned. "If I remember right, she's a daughter of Duke Valliere, and Valliere is one of the most powerful houses in Tristain. I've never spoken to her personally, of course, but …." She bit her lip.

"But what?"

"But you really should at least talk to her before you decide to leave or not."

Vin narrowed her eyes. "Why is that?"

"Don't get me wrong! If you want to leave, I won't stop you. I'll even help you, but if a mage loses her familiar, even a human one, well, it would be a mark of great shame."

Vin nodded. "You think she'd come looking for me?"

"Looking for you? Well, I don't know how she would find you, but she might. No, that's not the problem, but if you left, she would … feel bad."

"She'd feel bad," Vin repeated flatly.

"Terrible."

Vin didn't hate the nobility, not like Kelsier. He would gladly kill a nobleman; he would gladly kill a nobleman's skaa guards for supporting their own oppression. But most of the beatings Vin had suffered had come from other skaa like her brother Reen or other crewmembers. Still, if this Louise girl had steady meals and a place to sleep, then Vin had trouble feeling sympathy for her no matter how "bad" Vin made her feel.

But the fact that Louise's feelings made up Siesta's argument struck Vin as alien as the green plants and the yellow sun. Nobles were feared by some, hated by others, but pitied? Who even had pity at all? Reen certainly hadn't, and day after day he had tried to beat hers out of her. Kelsier hadn't. He was the first _good_ man Vin had ever met, but when it came to nobility, he was completely devoid of mercy.

Still, the fact that such a thing as pity could be expected _of_ a stranger _for_ a stranger told Vin that she knew even less of this world than she thought she had.

"Is there anything else?"

"She saved your life," Siesta said. "When she summoned you, you were hurt badly. No one knew if you were going to live at all, but Louise spent a small fortune on an elixir to heal your wounds, and she let you sleep in her own bed until you recovered."

"Because … if I died it would be a mark of shame for her?"

"Um, maybe. I'm not sure it would be as bad as if you ran away, but if you died she could have just summoned something else. It would have certainly been cheaper."

Vin frowned, not sure how to react. In the thieving crews she had passed through, no one spent money on the injured. Those were left behind, abandoned.

Abandoned.

 _Anyone will betray you, Vin. Everyone will abandon you._ Reen told her that. He had abandoned her himself to teach her that.

But Vin hadn't learned that lesson, not completely. Sometimes she wished she had.

She would stay. Maybe not forever, maybe not even for very long. But the world was new, Vin didn't know anyone here … and she owed the girl who saved her life. Later though, after she had a better idea of how things worked, after she had her metals again? Well, she'd decide then.

WWW

Louise trudged up the stairs to her bedroom. Whatever sympathy she had gained from summoning history's most pathetic familiar had worn off, and her classmates had resumed making their snide comments, old jokes, and had even come up with some new ones.

It was sad to see what passed for wit these days. The quip about the ladder was barely even coherent, let alone clever.

It was also sad that the comatose commoner in her bed was the best company she'd expect to have during the entire school year; her familiar was a great listener and didn't gossip, exactly what Louise wanted out of a friend. Or a wall.

As she opened the door to her bedroom, she wanted nothing more than to plop down in her bed and take a nap, but her bed had been occupied for the past few days. There was room enough for two, five if Louise lost all sense of personal space–and yet, with the condition her familiar was in, she might die in her sleep. Louise had no intention of waking up next to a corpse, thank you very much. But really, if her familiar were to die after all the time, work, and money Louise spent to help her recover, she was going to murder ….

Her bed was empty. Empty, made, looking like it hadn't been slept in, with no sign of her familiar. Louise looked around the room, under the bed, in the armoire, and was about to go down the hall to check if anyone had seen her when she saw her standing next to her desk as still as a tree and making half as much noise.

Louise let out a yelp and dropped her books. She could have sworn that her eyes had passed over that spot at least once without seeing anyone, but there her familiar was, up and dressed in a shirt and trousers, neither of which looked new or feminine. She didn't laugh at Louise's less than dignified reaction, she didn't even smile. She only stared at the floor with her head bowed, waiting for Louise to make the first move.

She wasn't very tall, Louise realized, seeing her standing up for the first time. She was taller than Louise, but only barely. Her hair was short and black, her eyes … sharp. Surprisingly sharp, as though she were watching everything while looking at nothing.

Louise cleared her throat. She had read several books on the importance of the first impression with one's familiar and how to establish oneself as the master, and in the past few days she had forgotten every word. "You're up."

Her familiar nodded, and her eyes flickered up to hers for half an instant without answering, not that it was a question.

"What's your name?"

"Vin."

 _Mouthy little peasant._ She might as well have summoned a commoner version of Tabitha. Vin stood tense, like a coiled snake. Or like a rabbit watching said snake. Why? What would make her so … oh, right. The near-death experience.

"You were hurt pretty badly when you arrived. What happened?"

Vin hesitated. "Monster."

 _Oh, don't elaborate. I didn't want to know anyway._ "Well, there aren't any monsters here. There's a fire breathing lizard down the hall, but he's harmless. And Tabitha's dragon hasn't eaten anyone, so she probably never will, and … and you have nothing to worry about."

Did Vin relax after her reassurance? If she did, Louise couldn't tell.

"By the way, I'm your master."

Vin nodded. Maybe it wasn't the most impressive declaration a mage could make to her familiar, but Vin seemed to accept it.

"And you're my familiar." Again, she nodded. "So you have to do what I say." Louise glanced towards her bed. "I'll come up with some duties for you. Later. I'm going to take a nap now. I haven't slept well in the past few days. That's your fault, by the way."

If Vin felt bad for inconveniencing her master, she gave no sign, so Louise gave her the benefit of the doubt and assumed that she was devastated. She plopped down on her bed. Founder, she was tired.

WWW

You know, If I spend ten pages just of Vin getting up and wandering around, this story will never get anywhere. Oh well. The next chapter will have an actual progression of time, and who knows? Vin might actually get her hands on some atium. Or pewter. Yeah, the second one seems a lot more feasible.

Thank you for your reviews, to the excellent, wonderful, remarkably good-looking people who left them, and thank you again to Magery and Stone Mason for editing this chapter. If you have any insults, bad jokes, or snide remarks, please keep them to yourself, but if you have any questions, comments, or unadulterated praise, I'd be happy to hear them.

Th-th-that's all, folks! Now on to chapter three!


	3. Chapter 3

Beautiful Destroyer

Chapter Three

"I am FREE!"  
-Well of Ascension

It occurred to Vin as the days passed that being Louise's familiar was the first legal occupation that she had ever had. Reen had brought her from thieving crew to thieving crew, and Kelsier had recruited her from crime to treason. But Vin was a skaa half-breed with a noble father. It wasn't legal for her even to exist.

She had never had a job that she could consider _safe_ either, until now. Her crews always had to stay one step ahead of the nobility they scammed, and if they didn't, Vin had to know when to run. Here, there was no risk of a sudden, violent death–or if there was, it was so distant that Vin couldn't even see it. Thieving crews had a greater chance of reward, but most of that went to the crew leader with little or none of it trickling down to Vin.

And Vin did get paid, though not in coin. Each day, she learned a little more of this strange new world. She followed Louise to her classes where several different teachers lectured the young nobles on magic. It wasn't Allomancy, Vin could tell that for certain, but the teachers assumed their students knew so much that Vin did not, and they never bothered to explain the basics.

Louise, though, was remarkably free with that information.

"There are four main branches of magic," Louise explained one night while Vin was brushing her hair. "Earth, wind, fire, and water. Most of the branches are fairly intuitive; if you want to burn something you use a fire spell, and if you want to douse something you use a water spell. But water spells can also be used to create magical potions like healing elixirs, and the top level wind spells can create illusions like invisibility. There are even basic fire spells, come to think of it, that make no fire at all and just create heat."

Magic, it seemed, was not kept a secret from the skaa (or commoners as they were called here), and Louise enjoyed having someone who wanted to listen to her. Vin noticed that very few of the other nobility treated Louise with any measure of respect.

"One of your teachers mentioned something called Alchemy," Vin prompted. She didn't like asking direct questions; that would give Louise too good of an idea of what she was planning, but Lord Ruler, she was _close_!

"Yes, that's earth magic," Louise explained. "It turns certain materials into other materials. There's a thief who started running around recently who breaks into buildings by turning walls into mud, calls himself Fouquet the Crumbling Dirt, or Clod, or something."

"I remember your teacher turned clay into metal." The magic of this land was fueled by willpower, which the mage regenerated while sleeping. Allomancy required the right alloy of metal.

Louise waved a hand dismissively. "It's not as useful as it sounds. Only the most skilled earth mages can turn something into gold, and even then they can't do it enough to cause inflation. Some nobles equip their guards with arms and armor they've made themselves, but what's really fun is when the armor fights without a person inside."

"Incredible." Vin took care to sound awed when Louise spoke; the girl seemed to like that. "Do you know anyone who can do that?" Vin was careful not to ask if Louise could; her magical skills were extremely limited, and Vin had learned quickly that the quickest way to incite her wrath was to remind her of that.

"Any earth mage can, and the stronger the mage is, the stronger the golem is. Guiche–he's in some of my classes–he used to create bronze golems all the time last year, until he realized that no one was impressed."

Guiche … he was one of the two people who had seen Vin impersonate a noblewoman. The second time he saw her, he didn't pay her a second glance, but the third time he saw her he did a double take, squawked like a chicken, tried to pass it off as a coughing fit, and walked away. They hadn't spoken since.

Siesta was the second of the two, and she was Vin's other source of information. While Louise was happy to educate her on magical theory, she grew annoyed when Vin asked her cultural questions. Siesta was more accommodating, assuming Vin was willing to tell her a story in exchange.

The maid had been impressed when she first found her impersonating a noblewoman, and had become enthralled with Vin's "adventure's" as Lady Valette.

"Did any of them ask you to dance?" Siesta asked one night as the two of them did laundry together after Vin told her about her first ball.

"Four or five," Vin replied, scrubbing one of Louise's shirts in an outdoor fountain. "I turned them down, though."

"You did?"

Vin nodded. "I never learned to dance, and if I spent the whole song stepping on people's toes, they'd consider that unladylike."

"Oh," she said, disappointed. "I would love to attend a ball, just once. It would be just like Lady Cinder and the Seven Suitors." That was probably a book she had read. Siesta could read, which seemed to be more common among peasants in Tristain than among skaa in Luthadel. Reen had taught Vin to read in case she needed to impersonate a noblewoman, but the writing here was complete gibberish.

"Hey Siesta," Vin said after a moment. "All nobles are mages here, right?"

She nodded. "Aren't they like that where you're from?"

Vin shook her head. "No. Most aren't, and those who are often keep it a secret just in case they need an edge. But here, the children of mages are also mages, right?"

She smiled. "Of course. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any mages left."

"What happens when a mage and a commoner have children together?"

Siesta frowned thoughtfully. "Good question. Usually? Nothing."

"Because it's not allowed?" In the Final Empire, any nobleman who bedded a skaa was expected to kill her before she could give birth. The Steel Ministry was charged with hunting down any violators of that law–as well as any half-breed children–and killing them.

"Oh, it's allowed," Siesta said. "Plenty of noblemen keep a mistress or two–or five–and I've read several books on the topic. The Lusty Albion Maid is one of my favorites actually; I'll have to lend it to you sometime. Though none of my books deal with the main characters' children."

"But it is allowed?" Vin asked.

Siesta nodded, then she leaned in close conspiratorially. "Why? Has someone … caught your eye?"

"No, no, nothing like that. I'm just curious about … half noble, half commoner mages." _Like me._ If she ever had to risk getting caught using Allomancy, it'd be nice to know if she could get executed for it.

"I imagine they do," Siesta said. "I can't think of any specifically, but even a mage without any money would have to live as a commoner. Wands, spellbooks, teachers, those are expensive, and without them, a mage is just like anyone else."

"But someone like that _could_ exist, right?"

"They'd have to," Siesta said. "The nobility wouldn't speak of them or accept them, but there would have to be some people like that."

And with that, Vin had all she needed to put her plan in motion.

WWW

Her plan began with Guiche being slapped in the face.

"I can't believe you, Guiche! You're a lying, despicable, dirty scoundrel!"

"Monmon, dear, please, this is not what it looks like. There is no need to jump to conclusions. I was just–"

"Dumped."

"I was going to say … what?"

"You're dumped. I'm dumping you, you lying, cheating creep! Go frolick with some innocent first-year if you want someone gullible enough to believe your steaming pile of trash!"

Katie, a first-year mage Montmorency had caught Guiche with, cleared her throat. "Actually, I'm breaking up with him too."

"But, Soufflé-Girl–"

" _Not_ my name!"

The two girls stormed off, leaving Guiche with handprints on his face, wine staining his shirt, and a crowd of amused nobles laughing at his misfortune.

Vin made sure she was far away at the time. He would be angry, and whether in Tristain or Luthadel, a noble's wrath could be both fierce and unpredictable.

And it didn't help that the whole mess was Vin's fault. Guiche had been cautious about keeping his affairs secret from other nobles, but commoners were invisible to him. All it took as a couple of false messages, good timing, and the situation burst into flames with nobles at each other's throats.

Kelsier would be proud.

Between his associates and Vin's responsibilities, it was some time before she managed to catch him alone. But she was patient enough to wait, now that she had something to wait for.

Finally, she found him out for a nighttime stroll while she was out doing laundry. She put down her basket and approached him.

"I heard about what happened between you and Lady Montmorency, Lord Guiche." This was no time for false sympathy. It was better to be direct. "I believe I can help."

He glanced at her with a sneer. "Oh, I am glad that my relationship status has reached the _lowest_ of circles, Lady Valette. Or is it just Valette now?"

"It's Vin. And like I said, I can help."

He waved a hand dismissively. "Bah! The day has not come where I have sunk so low as to need a commoner to help _this_ rose blossom."

Rose … that was a kind of flower. Vin didn't understand why he always compared himself to one; they looked nothing alike. "My apologies, Lord Guiche, for wasting your time." She bowed and turned away. _Three … two …._

"Wait." Vin stopped. "When you say 'help,' do you mean help me get back together with Montmorency, or that you can set me up with someone else?"

"Either."

"Either? And how exactly would you do this?"

Vin looked him in the eyes. "Tell me, would you rather know, or would you rather be able to deny knowing?"

His eyes widened. "Fair enough. But just to be sure, you're not planning on having your master threaten to blow her up, or poison her, or something like that, right?"

Vin shook her head.

"Alright. Final question: what will it cost me?"

"Eight specific metals, either in flakes or small beads, of _very_ specific alloys."

Guiche nodded. "Sounds simple enough. Once I am reunited with Montmorency, you will have your metals."

Vin shook her head. "I will need two alloys just to start out."

"Fine, fine. What do you need?"

"Brass," she said. "And zinc."

WWW

The next day his hair was neat, his shirt was clean, and Guiche de Gramont was ready to woo!

At least, that's what he told himself five times a minute as he approached Montmorency's table. _Ah, sweet Monmon._ She sat in the courtyard like a … a golden haired angel. Though, if she was an angel, then in his experience, she was not the sort of seraph to preface her messages with the phrase, "Fear not." And her message was usually divine wrath.

Guiche wished that they could do this somewhere more private. Valette– _Vin_ –had insisted that it be at a location where she could be nearby and had suggested lunchtime. She would be attending her master, and Montmorency would be sitting a small distance away, so it was perfect. In her mind, at least.

But if the peasant's presence was so important, couldn't they have done this at night with less people watching? He could knock on Montmorency's door with Vin off-duty and watching from down the hall, and if her plan worked, then Guiche might finally find out if make-up sex was all it was cracked up to be. Not that he had regular sex to compare it to, but still, he had heard excellent things about it.

Guiche came closer and closer to his perfect lady, ready to put the plan in motion, if one could call it that. The plan consisted of him initiating contact with Montmorency, and Vin assuring him that it would work. That was easy for her to say. If the plan failed, it would be him, not her, who would be publically humiliated for the second time that week.

He glanced at Vin, standing behind Louise's chair, and she gave him a slight nod. Oh, lovely, a _nod_ , that was all the reassurance he needed, now he could go on and defecate over his reputation. He opened his mouth to speak and found it dry. Should he have had another glass of wine? Probably not. He had plenty already, and it wouldn't do for his silver tongue to slur his golden words.

"Lady Montmorency," he said. "You are looking–"

" _You_."

He swallowed. Montmorency was not always easy to read, but she did not seem to be in a good mood. "Yes. Look, I know that things have been rough between us, but …."

"But what, Guiche? But you expect me to forget all of it, take you back, and fall into your arms all over again? Is that it?"

"Um … yes?" Alright, maybe that wasn't the best thing he could have said, but he sometimes had trouble thinking on the spot, and … and there were tears in her eyes. Oh, Founder, she was _crying_. Tears were dreadful things. He had never made a girl cry before this, but he knew in his heart that tears were nature's way of telling him that words were no longer adequate for letting him know just how deeply he had screwed–

Montmorency jumped out of her chair, threw her arms around him, and kissed him smack on the lips.

… up. Wha …? His brain struggled to tread water, trying to catch up to the present. He had just been kissed. Well, that was something. That was … quite a bit of something. He probably ought to do something with his mouth instead of letting it hang open. He puckered his lips a bit, but the kiss had already ended.

"You big dummy," she said into his shoulder. "If you ever do that to me again, I'll kill you."

Ah, death threats. Familiar ground at last. That was the only familiar thing about the situation, especially after the crowd, in a supremely surreal moment, began to applaud, but the rest was strange in a way he could get used to.

Yes, he could get used to this _very_ easily.

WWW

Vin waited until the end of the day to confront Guiche. She swallowed the last of the brass and zinc and, Pushing on Louise's emotions slightly, asked for the rest of the night off.

That was the power of the external mental metals; brass could Sooth emotions, making the target more relaxed, and zinc could Riot them, making people more agitated. She had learned to burn brass before she even knew what Allomancy was. She just knew that she could make people more complacent for a short amount each day, more gullible, easier to scam.

Camon, her last crew leader before Kelsier, had used her as a good luck charm, and Vin had used her Allomancy to Sooth away the target's suspicions. When the Steel Ministry had caught up with him, they had hung him in the street with a hook rammed down his throat, just like they did to everyone who blasphemed against Allomancy.

But now, Vin was beyond the jurisdiction of the Steel Ministry, and the Final Empire was a world away.

She found Guiche on the ground floor sitting on the edge of a stone fountain, bragging to other young men his age about his romantic success. She waited for him to notice her, and then kept on waiting as he glanced at her, and then ignored her. It would arouse suspicion if a nobleman stopped everything to talk to a commoner, but as he refilled his goblet, he seemed to be winding up the conversation instead of winding it down.

Could she wait? No. A commoner standing around, doing nothing would seem suspicious, and Guiche and his friends could easily retire as a group. Vin burned zinc, Pulling on his emotions, making him grow nervous and uncomfortable. He began to fidget as he spoke, and as he told his friends how irresistible women found him, he glanced over his shoulder to make sure none of those women could overhear.

"But that's enough for one night," he said finally. "The art of love is as tiring as it is rewarding, and I ought to give my girl a kiss goodnight before she goes to bed."

His friends laughed as he left them behind, and Vin fell into step beside him. "I trust, Lord Guiche, that you are satisfied with the results?"

He stared ahead as he walked, not sparing her a glance. "I have no idea what you are talking about. It was my irresistible charm that won the day; I didn't see you do a thing."

Ah. Vin thought he might try to wriggle out of payment. She considered threatening him, and convince him that she could break up their relationship as quickly as she had restored it, but that was too confrontational. Breeze had given her a few tips about emotional Allomancy, and he was so subtle that most people couldn't even tell when he was manipulating them.

 _What was it he said? It's about knowing what people expect to feel._ If a lord met a beggar and felt overcome with wonder and respect, then when Allomancy wore off he would remember that moment with suspicion.

So what was Guiche feeling? Greed? No, he could create bricks of metal without trouble. What was stopping him was pride. He didn't want to admit that he had needed her help and that he owed her, so he pretended that he didn't. And some of that was her fault. After he realized that he needed her, she had stopped playing the part of the timid peasant.

So she played that part again. She looked down at her feet, slouched her shoulders, and fell a step behind him. And then she Soothed his pride and Rioted his generosity and guilt.

"Ah, don't be that way," he said finally. "It is a small thing you ask, and I find myself in a remarkably good mood." Vin took that good mood and Rioted it further. His face brightened and he smiled as he spoke. "What was it you needed again? More metal?"

Vin feigned surprise and relief, assuming that was what he wanted to see. "Yes, thank you, your Lordship. More zinc and brass, if it's not too much, and tin, pewter, copper, bronze, iron, and steel."

"Of specific alloys?"

"Yes sir."

"I can get you the first few, but transforming substances into iron or steel is a line-class spell."

Well, it was a start. "Can you recommend anyone?"

WWW

"Why, yes, of course I can help!" Professor Colbert said. "Come in. Iron and steel, you said? I'm better with fire, but I can still combine earth with itself at least once. What was it Miss Valliere needed this for?"

"She didn't say, sir." Vin Soothed him slightly. Colbert's office was full of contraptions she didn't recognize, gears and tubes and puzzles inconceivable. "What's that?"

"Ah! That is an invention I'm … inventing. My Happy Snake is going to revolutionize how fire is used in this country. See, what it does is …."

WWW

And Vin was free. The sun had set, the academy slept, and Vin was Mistborn once more. There was no mist in this world, no swirling, white blanket to cover the night, but the night alone was hers, and for the first time since she arrived in this new, green world, she wore her Mistcloak.

She burned copper first. Bronze allowed Allomancers to sense Allomancy, and only copper could block that. Vin didn't know if this world's mages had an equivalent, but she wasn't going to risk exposing herself to find out, so whenever she needed to burn a metal, she burned copper first.

Out of curiosity, she burned bronze. Another Allomancer would emit a pulse, as much felt as heard, and even though she was the only Allomancer in this world, she heard pulses all the same. Hundreds of them, overlapping each other, all coming from the Academy. _So it works on mages too._

And then she burned tin, and the sky exploded in light. In the Final Empire, the mists blocked out the sky, so only Tineyes could see the stars, but here it was as though there were countless bonfires blazing between the clouds, and each of the moons seemed as bright as the sun itself. Her other senses increased too; the air seemed more chill on her skin, she heard mice scurrying through the grass, and she could smell the flowers in the garden on the other side of the courtyard.

Burning pewter filled her chest with warmth to counter tin's chill, and it made her body impossibly strong for her size. She ran across the grass, faster than a horse could gallop, and when she hit the outer wall of the Academy, she ran up it, pulling herself up by the cracks between the stones when her momentum ran out, as gracefully as a cat. Along with strength, pewter increased her reflexes, balance, stamina, healing, _every_ physical attribute besides her senses.

She burned iron, activating a new sense, Ironsight. Around her, everything made of metal–nails, locks, hinges, _everything_ –glowed blue and blue lines shot out of them into her chest. One of the larger lines connected her to the flagpole at the top of the Tower of Wind, one of the four outer towers where classes were taught. She flared iron, Pulling on that line, yanking herself towards it.

She landed on the roof and switched to steel, Pushing off the same flagpole, shooting herself off like an arrow towards the main tower. There was a sheltered bridge connecting the two with smaller bits of metal throughout. Vin Pushed off of the nails behind her, sending her forward with a constant thrust until the bridge ended.

From there she used all her metals together to Push, Pull, and climb her way to the top. And once there, she could see forever.

She saw trees, forests, farms, shacks. A few noble manors dotted the landscape, but that wasn't what she was looking for. She was looking for a city, a place with so many people that no one would look at a stranger twice. And she found it, a collection of lights between the buildings with a palace in the middle. It wasn't even that far, less than a day's walk, less still on a horse or with pewter. If she wanted to, she could leave now, reach the city before morning, and disappear forever.

And if she wanted to wait a bit longer, she could stockpile more metal, steal some noblewoman's clothes, a noble's cape, and a wand. Then she could pretend to be Lady Valette whenever she needed to, and as long as she waved the wand first, she could pretend that her Allomancy was just normal magic.

But did she want to leave? Did she have any reason to believe that life would be better in the city than in the Academy? No. She didn't even _know_ anyone there. At least here, she had … an owner. Okay, her situation wasn't ideal, but it was a far sight better than what she normally had. Before, she made up her criteria for a location off of one question: if she stayed there, would she be dead tomorrow? By that standard, she had no reason to leave.

Kelsier had spoiled her. She had always been afraid of dying growing up that she clung to her life so tightly and never had the thought to reach for anything else. But while others she knew had greed and ambitions, Kelsier had _dreams_ , and made her want to dream as well. He had treated her like a person instead of a tool, had made her feel to be a part of something. To Vin, that had been as overwhelming and unreal as a world with green plants, and for that, she had followed him to Kredik Shaw itself.

She should not have managed to survived that, and she wasn't eager to toy with death again. No, she might not have everything she wanted here–but she had everything she needed, and that was enough.

And now, she had an exit plan, just in case. It was just good sense to have a way out, no matter where you were.

She started to descend the tower, jumping off the roof when she saw a mage flying beneath her. She flared iron, Pulling herself towards the tower and grabbing onto a windowsill. To her tin-enhanced hearing, she sounded like she had crashed, but the mage below her didn't even look up.

The mage stopped at a window two floors below her and tapped on the glass. The window opened a moment later. "What happened?" she heard him say. "We were supposed to meet two hours ago, Kirche, but you never showed up!"

Vin recognized that name. Kirche was a tall, voluptuous woman with a strange, almost playful enmity with Louise. Vin's instincts made it hard for her to pass up free information as much as free food, but she didn't want to explain why she was dangling from the side of the tower in the middle of the night.

She peeked through her window. It wasn't an occupied bedroom, fortunately, but an empty hallway. That was perfect, actually. The window latch was a simple hook, and she Pushed it open with steel and crawled through.

Being inside the Academy would be less suspicious, even at this hour, but as a general rule, she'd rather not be seen at all. She tiptoed down the hall, and stopped when she heard a familiar voice.

"Ah. A terrible bit of work that, cursed, even, by my guess." It was Colbert's voice. Vin burned tin slightly to hear better, and squinted against the dim hall lights. "Supposedly it can drive you into a murderous rampage just by looking at it, but when I saw it I just felt sick."

"But you _have_ seen it?" It was a woman's voice, one Vin didn't recognize.

"Yes, I've seen it. I saw it and I didn't like it. The Sword of Destruction looks no different from a normal sword, but that level of enchantment shouldn't be possible. If you ask me, the treasury is the safest place for something like that."

"And you're sure it's safe there?" the woman asked. "I mean, no one has broken into the treasury before, right?"

"Not since its last set of enchantments. These days, that room is nearly impossible to enter without the key."

"Nearly?" she said with interest. Too much interest. _Uh oh._

"Well, nothing is absolutely impenetrable." He seemed uncomfortable with the subject. Good. "But enough about that, Miss Longueville. You know about the upcoming Ball of Frigg, yes?"

"A little bit. It's a big deal here in Tristain, isn't it?"

"You could say that. They say that a couple that dances together will be destined to be together." He laughed nervously. "It's just a myth, of course. Adam de La Saváge once did a study about seventy years ago that debunked it … but that doesn't matter. Anyway, might I be able to ask you to dance, when the ball comes?"

 _Oh no._ And the woman would say, "Of course. I love dancing." And then she would change the subject back to … "But I'm more interested in the magical items stored in the treasury." Yup.

But if Colbert was sharp enough, he would tell her … "And the treasury is very secure, unless you were to just try to smash your way in." Well, not that.

"Really? Why is that?"

"Because the enchantments were designed to stop mages. One would have to be at least a square-class mage to open the door with magic, but it should be far simpler to break through the wall."

"Really?"

"Easier by far. Of course, the walls here aren't made of glass by any means, but if you had an exceptionally tall battering ram, or a trebuchet–"

"Or a large enough golem."

"Or if you flew an airship into the side of the academy, or … well, you get the idea."

"Interesting," Longueville said. "Very interesting."

Vin groaned inwardly. She had participated in enough scams to recognize one when she heard it, and this Longueville person hadn't even been trying to be subtle. Not that she needed to. Colbert liked to talk and he was gullible. Vin had taken advantage of his gullibility just that day for a pair of Allomantic metals. What was it to her if a fellow thief was more ambitious?

She made her way to her bedroom and lay down on her pile of straw without waking up Louise, trying not to think about what she had just overheard. She had no reason to get involved. If Kelsier were here, he would side with the conwoman if he sided with anyone at all, and Reen ….

 _Never stick your neck out for anyone who wouldn't stick theirs out for you,_ she remembered him saying. _And the people you think would, won't. Not if you ever need them._

Longueville had gained Colbert's trust, and then she would betray it, stealing the sword she had mentioned or whatever in the treasury she could take. _Anyone will betray you, Vin,_ Reen seemed to whisper in her ear as she shivered on the floor.

 _That's just the way things are._

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A/n And that's chapter three! Thanks for reading! I'll see you all next week.

Ha, as if I can write that fast.

Brandon Sanderson, the author of Mistborn, has a reputation for creating intricate and detailed magic systems. Near the beginning of the book, he has a character use the magic with systematic detail, and at the end of the book, he has a chart that you can reference if you ever get confused. Some of you might not have read Mistborn before (in which case you're misusing your time, because it's far, far better than fanfiction), so I'm going to do the same thing.

Allomancy grants power based off of whatever metal is ingested and "burned." Mistings can burn only one metal, and Mistborn, like Vin, can burn all of them.

Brass–dampens emotions, called Soothing.

Zinc–inflames emotions, called Rioting. You can get the same effect with either zinc or brass. If you want someone to be less afraid, you can Riot everything beside fear, and if you want him to be more afraid, you can Sooth everything but fear.

Bronze–senses the use of Allomancy, called Seeking. For the sake of this story, I am allowing it to sense Halkeginia's magic, too.

Copper–counters bronze, called Smoking.

Tin–enhances senses. Because it affects all the sense, it makes the Allomancer vulnerable to bright lights and loud noises.

Pewter–enhances physical attributes, like strength, reflexes, balance, and healing.

Iron–pulls on metal. Newtonian physics apply, so if you Pull on a metal heavier than yourself, you will come towards it, but if your target it lighter, it will come towards you. It also enables Ironsight, allowing you to sense metal.

Steel–pushes against metal. It enables Steelsight, which works the same as Ironsight.

Gold–allows you to see an alternate version of yourself. Vin never learned this metal in this story, but in the book, she used it once and didn't like it.

Atium–allows you to see a few seconds into the future. This is the most valuable metal in the Final Empire because it makes its user temporarily invincible unless your opponent is also burning Atium. It probably does not exist in Halkeginia.

Anyway, those are the ten basic Allomantic metals. Vin will be mostly using the first eight, but she might make a reference to one of the others. If you ever get confused, just remember that you can come back to this list at the end of chapter three.

Again, thank you everyone who left a review, and if you're considering leaving another one, keep in mind that I do read them incessantly. As always, thank you Magery and Stone Mason for editing this chapter.


	4. Chapter 4

Beautiful Destroyer

Chapter Four

"There's always another secret."  
-Mistborn

Louise studied her familiar. Vin stood in the corner, uncomfortable under the scrutiny. In some ways, a familiar was said to be a reflection of the mage, and Louise wasn't sure she liked what that said about her.

She was the youngest daughter of Duke Valliere, one of the most powerful and respected families in Tristain. Shouldn't her familiar be equally impressive?

But no matter how hard she tried, Louise couldn't deny that she came up short in more ways than one. Her magic didn't work like it was supposed to. She always did something when she cast a spell, so no one accused her of being a commoner in disguise, but that _something_ was never the something she wanted. It was always chaotic and destructive.

 _Chaotic and destructive._ She studied her familiar again, searching for some hint of danger, but there was none to be found. Vin was a frightened rabbit of a girl about the same height and build as Louise herself, and she had revealed no more about the monster who had attacked her than she had when she first woke up.

No, there was nothing wonderfully unique about her familiar, at least nothing that she could see, but in one week all of her classmates would perform at the Familiar Exhibition, and she needed Vin to be able to do _something._

"Familiar," she said finally. "Do you know how to juggle?"

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After a few days of practice, Vin learned two things about juggling. The first was that it wasn't that difficult, as long as she had enough pewter to maintain her reflexes. The second was that she didn't like it.

"It isn't enough," Louise said. "People juggle cutlery all the time." Did they? Vin had never seen it before, but she supposed it could have been common entertainment for the nobility. "I got it! You can do it blindfolded." She grabbed a black silk scarf and handed it to her.

The silk was thin, which seemed to defeat the purpose of wearing a scarf, but much of what nobles did seemed frivolous to her. Vin put it on, and it was sheer enough for her to see through it when she burned tin.

"Good," Louise said, watching her resume her routine. "Now we just need to get you some more knives. Bigger knives. Butcher knives!"

Vin caught the silverware and set it down. She groaned inside, but she had tolerated much worse. "I could ask the cooks."

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The week passed, and the Familiar Exhibition came upon them. The day was bright and sunny in such a way that would have been impossible in the Final Empire, and Louise's entire class gathered in a crowd out in the courtyard. Vin didn't mind crowds as long as they didn't notice her, and they didn't. She was Louise's familiar, and even when people looked at her, they only saw Louise.

Unfortunately, just as Vin wanted to hide behind Louise, Louise wanted to put Vin on the stage to make her perform. Still, Louise often said that the accomplishments of the familiar were the accomplishments of the mage, so even in making a spectacle of herself, Vin might remain unnoticed.

"I don't believe it!" Louise whispered. "She actually came! Princess Henrietta herself!"

Vin followed Louise's gaze and saw a young woman in a white dress and violet cape instead of a student's uniform, flanked by guards and flagbearers. Vin wasn't sure what a princess's presence meant. In the Final Empire, there was the Lord Ruler, a creature more god than man who had not been challenged for centuries. Below him were his Obligators and high nobility, but they were _far_ below him. Where a princess stood in that spectrum, Vin couldn't say - but judging by Louise's reaction, she was fairly high up.

The exhibition started, and one by one mages ascended a stage, made some manner of fantastic beast do a trick, and returned to the crowd. Louise turned back to the princess after each performance to gauge her reaction, and by the time Kirche's salamander breathed fire, Vin regretted not Soothing her.

"Fire!" Louise whispered. "Of course! What was I thinking?" She turned to Vin. "How hard would it be for you to juggle torches? It would be the same as knives, right? One end you can touch, one end you can't."

But knives had distinct handles. With tin, the gentle heat of a torch's flame would sear her hands. Still, there was only one answer to give. "I can, but is there time?"

Louise hesitated. She studied a sheet of paper covered in words Vin couldn't understand. A schedule. "Kirche just went," she said, mostly to herself. "Then her turn, his turn, him, then me. If each exhibition takes … two? Two minutes, then …" She swallowed. "You should be fine. Go back to the main tower and grab, let's see, five, yes, five torches. Can you carry five at once? Not if they're lit. I'll come with you."

She was rambling. Louise was not prone to rambling. Sullen silences, yes, but she was more likely to turn to ice than to fire. That, more than anything, told Vin how important this performance was to her. The noble girl made one last backwards glance towards the princess before starting towards the tower.

Applause broke out behind them, and no one seemed disturbed by their departure. It was best, Vin decided, if their own performance went at least passably well. She preferred hiding in the background to standing on the stage, but as long as she was staying with Louise, she needed to be useful to her. Just like with every other skaa crew leader she had served under.

When they came through the gateway of the Academy's outer wall, though, Vin stopped dead in her tracks, and not even Louise was able to miss the colossus before them.

It stood half as tall as the main tower itself, made out of rock and earth, with bits of grass still clinging to its form. It had arms and legs like a man, but its proportions were thicker and wider, and in place of a head it had a round, neckless lump … with a person standing on top. The construct drew its arm back, made a fist like the side of a cliff, and punched the tower wall.

The air rang like a thunderclap, the earth shook, but the tower stood. The tower, the narrow, spindly thing that it was, stood without a scratch. The thing pulled its arm back and punched again.

What was going on? If it was attacking the Academy itself in broad daylight, then where was the outcry, the alarm? No matter how focused everyone was on the Familiar Exhibition, they couldn't miss a walking hillside smashing a building, could they?

But even if they could, it was their problem, not hers. She picked her battles, and she had no reason to pick a fight with a hundred tons of shambling dirt. They could just walk back to whence they came, and let someone else deal with it, someone who was strong, brave, or stupid enough to challenge the thing.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing? I go to school there, you brute!"

Someone like Louise. She furrowed her brow at the indignity of the situation and pulled out her wand, not to cast a spell, but to intimidate it. Fifty feet of animated rock, and Louise chose to _threaten_ it.

The person on the thing's head turned, noticing them. It was hard to tell at a distance, but Vin thought she saw a feminine curve through the person's cloak and a strand of waving hair longer than most men wore. The thing, a golem if Vin remembered from Louise's lessons, turned too, raised its hand, and swatted at them as though striking a fly.

Vin flared pewter and lunged at Louise, knocking both of them out of the way. The earth shook with the impact of the giant palm, bouncing Vin to her feet, but Louise lay in a disoriented tangle of her own long, pink hair. Reen's voice berated her in her head, telling her that she should be running, that she should be _gone_ instead of staying here, risking her life for someone who would gladly use her up until there was nothing left. She ignored him.

In fact, she found herself thinking more of Kelsier than her brother. She had last seen him in another world, but other than that, the circumstances weren't that different. Then and now, she had stumbled across a monster she had not expected, that she was nowhere near ready for, and both times one of them had to stay to give the other time to run.

But this time, Vin was the one who knew how to respond. Despite being the same age, Louise had as much experience dealing with threats and monsters compared to her as Vin did compared to Kelsier, which meant that there was only one thing she could do.

"Louise," she said, not caring if she was using the proper address for a noble girl of her rank. "Run."

Louise stood up, seeming more upset at getting her clothes dirty than at nearly being crushed. "What? Run? I can't run. That would shame my–"

"Run!" Vin flared zinc, Rioting her fear. Louise inhaled sharply and seemed to nearly choke on her own tongue. She trembled, and seemed far younger than her sixteen years, for to be a child was to be afraid, and with one last look at the lumbering colossus, she ran.

The golem reached a long, broad arm towards Louise, but Vin took one of the ten knives she had strapped to her belt and threw it at the woman on the golem's head. It was metal instead of glass, next to useless against an Allomancer, but more than sufficient for juggling. And with a bit of steel burning in her stomach, the knife flew like an arrow.

She missed, of course. She had no practice with throwing knives, and a such a distance she'd have had as much of a chance with her eyes closed. The knife sailed harmlessly over the woman's head, but it got her attention and gave Louise enough time to escape.

The golem brought its hand back and swatted at her, but she dived out of the way and then jumped back onto the earthen hand as it pulled away. She stabbed it with her second knife under the pretense of steadying herself, which did as much damage as she expected - but when she burned iron, she saw a blue line between her and the knife. Good. Metal inside a living thing was impossible to Push or Pull, but the golem didn't count as alive and as long as the knife stayed in place it would make a good anchor.

She wondered briefly if Kelsier had made it out of Kredik Shaw, but she'd likely never find out. She focused instead on being a fly, the sort that you could never catch no matter how fast you were, that would stand as still as a stone until right before your hand came down on it, and then move with reflexes that required Atium to match.

She half climbed, half ran up the golem's arm toward the head.

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Louise was halfway back to the Exhibition before she steeled herself. What was she doing? No, she knew what she was doing, _exactly_ what she was doing. She was running away like no Valliere had ever done and had abandoned her familiar like no noble worthy of her title would sink to.

She had submitted to fear. And fear had no part in the Rule of Steel.

Louise de La Valliere, called Louise the Zero by some, turned around and ran back to retain what was left of her honor and her pride. What she found in the courtyard behind the tower amazed her.

She had expected to find her familiar lying broken on the ground as a testament to Louise's most recent failure, if she remained even in one piece. After all, Vin was a frail thing, timid and shy who had spent her first week lying in bed recovering from being nearly cut in half by some enigmatic monster, and the mage controlling the golem had to be triangle class _at least_. Or maybe, if she was very lucky, Vin would be evading the golem's attacks, running like a rabbit from a wolf.

She had _not_ expected to find Vin dancing across the golem's thrashing limbs with the inhuman grace of a spider, as though she had made a hobby of doing cartwheels through collapsing buildings during an earthquake. Yet there she was, dressed in cheap peasant's clothes, armed with kitchen knives more suited for cutting bread and butter than combat, holding her own against a triangle class mage. Timid? No. Her posture, when she stood still long enough for it to be read, seemed to say, "I've faced worse."

Vin darted up the golem's arm and across its chest, aided only by a knife embedded into the construct to use as a handhold, but when she got close to the woman on its head, the mage drove her back with magic, drawing earth from the golem itself and repelling Vin with boulders and stone walls.

No, Vin wasn't winning. She was barely holding her own, which was more than impressive for a commoner, but she only had to be unlucky once. Louise wasn't going to give her time for her luck to run out, so she began chanting a spell. She had never cast this spell successfully before, but it was either that or nothing, and if she had been content to do nothing she would have stayed away.

"Fireball!" she said, finishing the spell. For a moment, nothing happened, not the slightest spark or flame. Then the golem exploded. She had been aiming at the head, hoping to knock the mage off from her perch, but the spell hit the golem in the shoulder, making its entire left arm fall off. That would have been precisely perfect and far better than expected, had that arm not been the one Vin was standing on. She fell through the air like so much dirt and stone, finally caught off balance.

"Levitate!" Louise shouted, hoping to catch her familiar before she hit the ground, but that spell, cast more frantically than the first one, missed by an even wider margin and hit the tower instead, blasting a hole into the white, reinforced stone. A hole that the golem's very own fists had been unable to make.

Vin, unable to get her feet beneath her in time, landed on all fours like a cat. In that moment, the golem could have stepped on her to finish her off, but the mage seemed more interested in the hole in the tower and jumped off the golem's head to fly into it.

Louise hurried over to her familiar's side, hoping to pull her out of danger through more mundane means, as her magic was unreliable at best and catastrophic nearly always. After a forty foot drop, Vin _should_ still be alive, but walking might challenge her depending on how she landed. She found her lying in the earthen remnants of the golem's arm, but before she reached her, the golem moved, and Louise heard laughter overhead. Then the golem walked away, stepping over the outer wall, and the mage went with it as though the youngest daughter of Duke La Valliere was no one to worry about.

She would have been insulted had it not been true. Besides, Louise had concerns of her own.

Vin, though, despite the golem, the mage, and the fall, stood up with no sign of injury. No broken bones, no bruises, and she moved with an unnatural speed, as though she existed in a more attenuated time.

"Are you okay?" she asked, but Louise felt foolish as soon as the words came out of her mouth. There was no evidence that her familiar was anything less than well, though neither was there an explanation for how she could be anything more than a smear on the golem's palm after what had happened.

Vin watched the golem disappear before turning to Louise, her dark brown eyes unreadable. "You came back." She seemed smaller all of a sudden, as though she had begun turning from the acrobatic warrior she had been to the quiet, timid servant Louise knew her as.

"Um, what? Of course I came back. A noble who runs away is …" Well, she _had_ run away, even though she returned afterwards. "I mean, a master who abandons her own familiar …" She had done that too. She set her jaw and looked away. "You know what? Let's just forget this ever happened, okay?"

But still she felt Vin's eyes on her, the same unreadable expression on her face and an unspoken question in her voice, and she softly whispered, as though to herself, "You came back."

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As guards swarmed around the debris and patrolled the surrounding area, Louise made an official report to the Headmaster, an old man with an agenda Vin could only guess at. A few hours later, Louise answered his summons to tell him anything she might have missed the first time, and the next morning she talked to him again. The third meeting began with a crude drawing and a lead, and it ended with Louise volunteering to retrieve a stolen treasure.

And that was how Vin found herself riding in a cart through the forest on a quest to reclaim something called the Sword of Destruction stolen by the golem's mage who had named herself Fouquet in a note she left behind.

She wasn't alone with Louise, of course. Oh no, that would have been too simple. As soon as Louise volunteered to go on a dangerous and–if successful–glorious mission, Kirche von Zerbst offered to go as well. Vin knew little about her, only that she and Louise were enemies and that Kirche was a relentless flirt.

Even though the wagon was big enough for several times their number, Kirche sat so close to Vin their hips were touching. "So, you're the familiar Louise summoned." There was laughter in her voice as she inspected her. "Does she make you sleep in the bed with her, or does she have you sleep on the floor like a good little dog?"

Kirche was a noble, but not directly above Louise so she wasn't directly above Vin either, meaning that Vin was expected to treat her with respect, but not obedience. She hoped. "My apologies, Lady Zerbst, but it is not my place to say."

She let out a laugh, a noise that carried more judgement than reaction. " _Lady_ Zerbst? How quaint! Where did you learn such manners? Or is that 'not your place to say,' either? Whatever. If you ever get tired of dealing with short, pink, and perpetually nettled over there, take a break and come over to my room." She leaned in close and whispered in Vin's ear, " _I_ know how to take care of people."

Vin's body when tense. Her whole life, she had tried to be seen as a thief and crewmember first and a girl second. She wore a shirt and trousers and kept her hair short, and only recently had she started wearing her mother's earring under Kelsier's suggestion even though it made her look more feminine. It was a necessity when the people sleeping next to you would gladly break your bones for a few coppers if they didn't kill you outright. When you didn't have power, being unnoticed was the next best thing. Vin suddenly realized that her choice in appearance might have backfired.

"You know I'm a girl, don't you?"

Kirche laughed again, this time as a reaction. "Yeah, I may have had my suspicions. But seriously, what's with that getup? Your cloak is so tattered it looks like its last owner had tried to make love to a bear, and the rest of you looks like Louise dressed you up as a pretty young man because she knew she'd never get a boyfriend."

Vin pulled her Mistcloak around her reflexively. In Luthadel, the Mistcloak had been a symbol that she was not someone to be questioned or challenged, if she were even seen. Here, it meant nothing, and it was useless without any mists to blend into, but she wore it all the same because … she wasn't sure why. It _felt_ right, and that was reason enough.

"That's not true!" Louise said, _finally_ intervening. "Those are just the clothes she was wearing when I summoned her."

"Uh-huh," Kirche said. "And if you had summoned her while she was taking a bath, would you have kept her naked the whole time? If _I_ had summoned Vin here, the first thing I would have done would be to throw out her old clothes and dress her up in something so it at least wouldn't _look_ like I found her on a random street corner."

"Yeah right, Kirche. That's why your salamander is still wearing nothing but the scales you summoned it in."

"Hey! First of all, Zero, that … that's a pretty good idea, actually." Kirche leaned back thoughtfully. "Huh. I'll have to look into that when we get back."

"What? No! That was my idea! You can't steal it."

Kirche smiled smugly. "I'm not stealing it, you _gave_ it to me. Flame would look real good in a tux. Now I just need to find a tailor who specializes in pets."

A shadow passed over them as a dragon blocked out the sun. They didn't have dragons in the Final Empire, and even here they were rare, majestic beasts, large enough to swallow a man or carry him in flight. Tabitha had summoned one, a blue one with a white underbelly she had named "Sylphid," and had brought it with her for their journey.

Vin knew even less of Tabitha than she did of Kirche. The girl had blue hair and glasses, and was the shortest member of the group. She was friends with Kirche, and had volunteered to help right after Kirche did. Considering the relationships between the three of them, Vin would have suspected Kirche and Tabitha of planning to kill Louise and claim that she had been a tragic casualty of the mission, had not a far more obvious threat been holding the reins of the wagon and leading them further and further from everywhere Vin knew.

Miss Longueville sat in the front, humming to herself, her face the picture of innocence. A little over a week ago, Vin had overheard her wheedling information out of Professor Colbert about both the treasury and the Sword of Destruction. Vin had been involved with enough scams to tell idle curiosity from a conwoman, and Miss Longueville's questions had been far too intent. Colbert had told her that the treasury's weakness was physical force, and a week later Fouquet tried to smash her way through for the same sword.

That alone could have been a coincidence. If nothing else had happened, Vin could have believed that Longueville had been planning her own heist and Fouquet had beat her to it, but right afterwards, Longueville had shown up with Fouquet's description and home address from some unnamed informant. Fouquet, apparently, had traveled from the Academy directly to her hideout without changing out of her signature cloak, and despite her hideout being a shack in the middle of the forest, someone had stumbled across it just as Fouquet arrived.

No one at the Academy found that suspicious.

Lord Ruler, between Kirche and Louise bickering about lizard suits and Tabitha reading her book, Vin felt like the only one who had considered how easily the surrounding trees could conceal an ambush. As things were, Vin's greatest concern was the green haired woman who was connected to Fouquet, if she wasn't Fouquet herself.

Should she warn one of the others? No. Louise was the only one she knew at all, and if Louise didn't believe her, then all that would do would be to warn Longueville. Taking a preemptive strike was out too; given Vin's ratio of suspicious to facts, an unbiased judge would consider it murder.

So throughout the cart ride through the woods, Vin studied the back of Longueville's head and pondered what her game was.

They arrived at the abandoned shack surrounded by a clearing. Vin didn't see any sign of ambush, but anything could be hiding in the trees or in the building, so she burned bronze and iron. No Allomantic pulses warned her of a spell being cast, and the only metal nearby was in the shack, and it wasn't moving. Good. In Luthadel, the nobility wore metal as a sign of bravado, and here they wore it because they didn't know any better. Buttons, belt buckles, they all wore at least a bit of it, so even if an enemy were hiding behind a wall, Vin would see them.

"This is the place," Longueville said, stepping out of the wagon. "Good luck."

Louise looked at her in surprise. "What, you're not coming with us?"

Longueville smiled and shrugged. "I'm just the guide, it's you lot who are the glory seekers. I'll stay here as the, um, lookout. I'll yell, 'Look out!' if I see anything."

"So that's why it's called that," Louise mused. "I'll stay out here too. This way, we can watch all the exits in case Fouquet tries to sneak out the back door."

Kirche raised an eyebrow at that. "So you're going to stay out here where it's safe and let me and Tabitha face mortal peril on our own?"

"What? I–"

Kirche waved a hand dismissively. "Hey, don't worry about it. It's not like you would have been any help in a fight anyway."

Vin flared brass and Soothed both of them. Lord Ruler, Louise's noble pride was going to get her killed, if Kirche didn't do it first. Vin still wasn't sure about her.

Louise bit her lip and flipped her hair back, as though Kirche wasn't worth responding to, and Kirche and Tabitha approached the house. They made a great show of moving as quietly as possible, which was a bit pointless after all the noise they made arguing, and Tabitha cast a spell before entering, but Vin focused more on Longueville.

She didn't wear much metal, and Vin would have lost track of her entirely if it weren't for the coin pouch she carried. If Vin had been back in Luthadel, she would have expected her to part ways with her coins to send Vin on a false trail, but here in a world without Allomancy … well, she still suspected it, but not as much.

"Mistress Louise," Vin said softly, eyeing the blue line that marked Longueville through the old building. She lost it for a moment, confusing it with the lines from nails and the two girls, but she caught it again. "If you were Fouquet and wanted to lay a trap for us, what would you do?"

Louise stared at her. "What kind of question is that? I'm a noble. You can't expect me to understand the mind of some wretched thief."

Vin bowed her head. "I'm sorry. I mean no offense." It was a good thing she hadn't voiced her suspicions about Longueville. Kelsier had sought out her input on occasion, but most of the other crew leaders she had served under wanted nothing but silent obedience.

"I mean, nothing about this makes sense," Louise continued as though she hadn't heard her. "With all the artefacts in the treasury, why take just one? She could have carried more. And why take the Sword of Destruction at all?"

"It _sounds_ powerful," Vin prodded.

"Oh, yes, very powerful. Also completely useless. If you use it, you die. If you just _look_ at it, you might go insane. There's no market for cursed weapons that destroy their owner, and if you can't sell it and you can't use it, why steal it? The only reason Osmond hasn't destroyed it yet is because, well, I don't think he can."

Vin frowned. It didn't make sense for a sword to be unusable, but if Vin could design a weapon, she'd want to make sure it couldn't be used against her. It was like a lock; you wanted it to open for you, but no one else. But if Fouquet had the key to this sword, or at least had found a way to pick its lock …

She felt a pulse, signaling her that someone had used magic. Longueville? Or was it Kirche, or Tabitha? They were all in the same direction, so she couldn't tell.

"Mistress Louise," Vin said as a thought struck her. "How much are the three of you worth in terms of ransom?"

Louise smirked. "What, do you think that Fouquet broke into the treasury to steal some random showpiece and let us track her down just to lead us into the middle of nowhere in order to take us hostage for an easy few hundred thousand?" She tried to laugh, but ended up sounding frantic. "That's crazy. You're being paranoid, Vin. Stop being paranoid."

Vin felt another pulse, marked by a rumble as trees fell over. "Look out!" she said, pointing.

"For what?" Louise looked up and saw what Vin saw, the top half of an earth golem emerging from the forest as a giant wading through a green sea. It had the same proportions as Fouquet's golem the day before, broad and thick, but it was shorter now, only a bit more than half the size as the first. Louise screamed. "Kirche! Tabitha! Get out of there!"

It hadn't arrived from Longueville's direction, but it had appeared at the same time as a pulse from her direction. That was more evidence, but not quite proof. Not that it mattered. Even if Vin had proof, it would still be her word against Longueville's, and that wasn't a gamble she was willing to take. The golem ignored her and stepped forward with its clumsy, loping gait. It was large enough to crush the small wooden building and everyone in it, but it didn't. It grabbed the roof with both hands and _ripped_ it from the walls.

Why? The house was still ruined, and the stolen sword would survive a collapsed roof better than the two intruders. Why begin a conflict in the one way that wouldn't result in an instant victory?

This was a trap. Vin knew it was a trap from the start, and like an idiot she had walked right into it, hoping that she'd be able to unravel Fouquet's plan before the snap. Now the trap had sprung, and Vin was no wiser than she had been at the start.

"We need to run," she said. She had fought the golem before, and its only weak spot was Fouquet herself … who had vanished. She must have retreated into the woods until the blue line from her coin pouch had dwindled into nothing.

"No," Louise said. "No."

The wind howled as Vin felt another pulse marking a spell being cast, and torrent of air blasted against the golem, doing nothing more than carrying off a bit of dirt. A blast of fire followed, burning off some of moss on the golem's back, but that was all. Vin had hoped that Kirche and Tabitha could distract it long enough for them to escape, but that didn't seem likely.

"You don't have a choice!" Louise had never been cruel or abusive to her, but Vin suspected that she'd pay for speaking to her so sharply later. It would be worth it if she got the girl out alive. She needed Louise–she needed the protection and opportunities her position under Louise offered her.

"Yes I do! I can do this!" She raised her wand and cast a spell at the golem, blasting off a few pebbles–and gaining its attention. It raised a fist, and if Vin hadn't pushed her out of the way, both of them would have been crushed.

That didn't make sense either. It tried to smash Louise immediately, but it only glared at the two people in the house? _What am I missing?_

Vin rolled to her feet and faced the golem, which had gone still. Waiting for something? What? Or maybe controlling it from a distance added extra complications? She had spent weeks in this world, and there was still so much she didn't know.

"This isn't a fight we can win," Vin insisted. Should she use Allomancy? It had worked before.

"I've already run away once!" Louise said, standing up. "I won't again! I can't!"

Noble pride. Worth dying for, it seemed. _Noble stupidity,_ Reen seemed to say. Either way, emotional Allomancy was out of the question, not if it compromised the core of what Louise thought she was. And that left Louise with only one choice.

She burned pewter, slung Louise over her shoulder, and ran.

"Hey!" Louise thrashed and kicked her feet, but while they were about the same size, as long she had pewter she could overpower a grown man. Or a horse. "Stop that! Put me down! Put me down right now! I order you!"

Louise would be furious when they got back. Lord Ruler, she was furious _now_ , but if it meant getting her out alive, she'd pay whatever price it took, even Louise's ire. Tabitha's blue dragon landed on the far end of the clearing, and Kirche and Tabitha had already started climbing on its back. If Vin could reach them in time … but she couldn't. They were too far away, and with the golem following her, they'd take off without her and …

They stayed. Kirche even waved her arms as though cheering Vin on. Vin ran, and with a pewter-enhanced jump, leaped onto the dragon's back. The dragon spread its massive wings, flapped, and shot into the air, leaving the golem on the distant ground.

WWW

Louise sat on Sylphid, feeling numb despite the undulating motions of the dragon's flight pattern. She hadn't run away; that was good. She had _tried_ to stay and fight, and would have if it weren't for her familiar. Unfortunately, given protecting her was one of the familiar's duties, she couldn't really be angry with her, though they would need to have a discussion about the proper relationship between a master and a servant later.

They had obtained the Sword of Destruction, or at least the box it had always been held in. "Are you sure it's in there?" she asked.

Tabitha nodded and Kirche answered. "Tabitha cast Detect Magic on the box, so there's definitely _something_ in there, and I'm willing to take a leap of faith on the idea that Fouquet isn't a complete idiot.

Louise nodded to herself. If someone like Fouquet had tried to use the sword, she'd be dead right now instead of attacking them, and even if she had switched the sword out with another magical item, no one would think less of them for not checking more than they already had.

Or at least, more than Kirche and Tabitha already had. They were the ones who ventured into the shack and found the sword. Even their less than gallant escape was possible due to Tabitha's dragon. During the entire mission, Louise had contributed … not a lot. And with the golem still looking up at them from the ground and Fouquet still at large, the whole thing felt … unsatisfactory.

"Wait!" she said suddenly. "We can't leave yet! Miss Longueville's still back there!"

Kirche snapped her head back and her eyes widened. "Oh Brimir, that's not good. Can we land?"

Tabitha shook her head.

"Typical. Louise, where was the last place you saw her?"

"It was right after you two went in. She was right on the other side of the little hut, but when the golem appeared she was gone!"

"Do you think Fouquet got to her?"

"I don't know! I was distracted by the golem! We have to go back!"

"We should leave," Vin said.

Louise blinked in surprise. Some of the things her familiar said made her seem like a coward, but Vin didn't sound scared. If anything, she sounded _angry_.

"No," Louise said firmly. "She's with us. We're not abandoning her. Either we all go back together, or none of us do." The line sounded good. She wished she had the magical prowess to back up her bravado.

"Fouquet may have already found her," Kirche said, looking down over Sylphid's side. "And even if she's okay, Longueville isn't going to draw attention to herself with that golem looming about."

"So we need to get rid of it," Louise said.

"Yeah, because that will be so easy."

Kirche had a point. Kirche's fire had done no more than Tabitha's wind, and Louise's explosions weren't that effective either. But as Louise eyed the box at Kirche's side, she thought of something she hadn't tried.

"I have an idea." A stupid, reckless idea, but the only one she could come up with. And if it worked, no one would call her Zero ever again. Of course, if the idea failed, she'd die, but that was the inherent risk of being noble. "Tabitha, could you cast Feather Fall on me, please? Okay, thanks."

Before anyone could stop her, before anyone even understood what she intended to do, she grabbed the box containing the cursed sword, and jumped off the dragon's back.

Wind whipped past her making her hair trail behind her, and her stomach lurched, but Tabitha, being a skilled wind mage and not given to emotions like surprise, slowed her so she landed gently on the ground.

The golem noticed her and began lumbering towards her slowly. Louise set down the box, a heavy, metal case that seemed like it was made out of lead, and opened it up.

Inside, she saw a long black sword. It lay in an ornate scabbard lined with silver, as though the box wasn't protection enough from its curse. And even if she hadn't known what was in front of her, if she had never heard the story of the Sword of Destruction, she would still have known that the weapon was evil.

Suddenly, Louise didn't like swords. Crude, brutal things, they were. A wand or a staff could be used for creation, destruction, and everything in between. Hammers could be used for smithing, and axes cut wood more often than people. Even spears and bows could be used for hunting, but a sword was only ever used by people to _kill_ people.

And this was a sword unlike any other.

She had planned to use it, to see if it could live up to its name and destroy Fouquet's golem, but now that she had seen the thing, she knew she couldn't touch it as she had planned. Instead, she just felt sick.

She felt a shadow pass over her, and part of her was aware that the golem was right on top of her, but instead of being afraid, she just wanted to throw up.

"You," a familiar voice said behind her, "are rapidly becoming the second most insane person I've ever worked with."

 _Vin._

Her familiar picked her up with an amount of strength that belied her size, stepped over the lead box, and _jumped_ at least fifty feet into the air. They landed on the dragon's back, and now that she was away from that horrible, hellish weapon, she could think again.

"You," she whispered, "you can do _magic_."

WWW

Kelsier always said that there was always another secret, and now hers was out. Pewter could be mistaken for exceptional physical abilities, but steel was flashy. She knew all along that she might have to reveal her Allomancy eventually, and it wasn't like this world had an order of invincible priests dedicated to hunting down people like her, but she still felt … less without her secret. More vulnerable.

"Dang, girl," Kirche said. "You've been holding out on us."

Vin didn't answer. She didn't owe anyone an explanation, and Kirche hadn't asked a question.

"As impressive as that was," Kirche continued, "you left the sword behind, which was kind of the point of coming here. Hey, Tabitha, can you levitate that up here?"

Tabitha glanced down once and shook her head. "Too far."

 _Not for me._ Their magic, like Allomancy, had limitations, and from attending Louise's classes the spell Levitation was limited by weight and distance, but for Allomancy, a larger source of metal only made it easier to Pull on.

She grabbed onto the base of the dragon's wing and flared iron, and the entire beast lurched downwards as she Pulled the metal box upwards. The box shot up into the air behind them and arced towards them as she Pulled it forward and downward before she burned pewter to catch it.

It was empty.

 _Fantastic._

Vin set the box down on the dragon's back, which had more than enough room, and burned iron again to Pull on the sword. She saw nothing. She looked down over the side, and though she could see where sword lay, it had only the thinnest blue line coming off of it.

That didn't make sense. A sword that size should have had more than enough metal to Pull on, even at this distance, but from an Allomantic perspective it was less than a coin. Was it made of wood? A sword too dangerous to be used that was made of _wood_?

Well, there was only one thing to do. If she couldn't Pull on the sword with Allomancy, she'd just have to get it herself. She grabbed the box and dropped it off the dragon, jumping off after it, and Pushed on it to slow her fall. It crashed against the ground, its lead frame warping on impact, while she landed on top of it as lightly as a feather, and then dashed for the sword.

She reached it, a black, sinuous blade in a silver lined scabbard, and grabbed it by the hilt. She had planned to take it and run, as any thief with enough sense would know to, but as soon as the sword was in her hand, the familiar runes engraved into her skin flared like the sun, all thoughts of escape fled out of her head, and she heard a voice, cheerful and childish, greet her in her mind.

"Hello," the voice said. "Would you like to destroy some evil today?"

She had never held a sword before, but it felt _right_ in her hand, just like soaring through the mists after she'd discovered her Allomancy had felt right.

The golem lumbered toward her, slow, huge, and clumsy, as though she could be intimidated by size alone. It was a crude and ugly thing, something that needed to be … destroyed.

Did she want to destroy some evil today? There was only one answer to that question, and only one way to express it.

She unlatched the scabbard and pulled the sword free.

Black smoke burst from the blade, like an erupting ashmount. No, it wasn't like ash. It was black mist.

 _They say you drive people mad if they just look at you,_ she thought.

"So? Madness is just in your head."

 _So it is._ She couldn't bring herself to feel as suspicious as she usually did. Besides, what did it matter if she if she went mad and started hearing voices? Her own mother heard voices, and Kelsier was as insane as could be. _Are you going to kill me when this is over?"_

She heard laughter in her mind. "Why would I do that? I only destroy evil."

 _And that's why they call you the Sword of Destruction?_ It was a remarkably surreal experience, talking to a sword, somehow made even odder with the sword talking back to her.

"Is that what people call me? That's a bit unimaginative. My real name is Nightblood, not that anyone bothers to ask."

 _Nightblood? My name is Vin._

"Pleased to meet you."

The golem raised hand to strike, but Vin neatly sidestepped the blow and cut through its arm like … even water would have provided more resistance. It was like the rock and dirt had disintegrated before she even touched it. And disintegrated was the right word–it had evaporated the earth into black mists, the golem's hand gone entirely and its stump a dead gray instead of brown.

But that didn't surprise her. Somehow she knew exactly what the sword was capable of, just as she knew to burn all eight metals in her stomach as long as Nightblood was unsheathed. Why, she didn't know, but she didn't need to know why, only what.

She struck again before the golem could respond, destroying its leg. It fell, and she struck again and again until there was nothing left but a small, gray lump, unable to get up.

She sheathed Nightblood and extinguished her metals. She continued holding it, and the runes on her left hand continued to glow.

The dragon landed, and while Tabitha remained seated and Kirche eyed her cautiously, Louise jumped off and ran towards her.

"Vin! You did it! What were you thinking? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." She was, wasn't she?

Louise hesitated. "You're not, um, crazy or anything, are you? I mean, you should be dead right now, but you're not, and you're not crazy, right?"

For some reason, Vin couldn't help but smile. "You ask me that _now_? _You_ ask me that?"

Louise frowned and puffed out her chest. "What's that supposed to mean? I've always been sane, and I have a perfectly legitimate reason to inquire after the mental health of my own familiar."

Before she could answer, Longueville emerged from the forest, and Vin stopped smiling.

"Destroy evil?" Nightblood said hopefully.

"My, that _was_ impressive," Longueville said. She sounded far too smug, and she adopted a tone of false embarrassment. "Sorry about running off like that. The golem appeared, I panicked, and, well, you get the idea. But you seemed to have managed everything by yourselves, so it all worked out."

"Yeah," Kirche agreed. "Apparently Louise's familiar is a mage or something?" It came out as more a question than a statement–while Vin displayed abilities impossible for normal people, she hadn't used a wand like a mage.

"She could use the Sword of Destruction without being destroyed," Louise said as though Longueville hadn't seen the whole thing. "I don't even know how that would be possible."

 _Nightblood_ , she thought, not taking her eyes off of Longueville. _Is Longueville Fouquet?_

The sword gave the mental equivalent of a shrug. "No idea. I don't know who Longueville is, and I don't know who Fouquet is either."

Vin gritted her teeth. _Is this woman the one who stole you?"_

"Oh. Right, yes. I didn't know I was being stolen, but that's the one who took me here. I recognize her BioChroma."

She didn't know what BioChroma was, but it was a good enough answer for her.

Longueville studied the sword in her hand appraisingly. "Maybe the stories about the sword have been exaggerated. I can't imagine anyone testing something to make sure it would cause madness and death, and maybe people just said that to prevent others from trying to use it."

Kirche nodded in agreement. "And maybe Vin here was just the first one reckless enough to call their bluff."

Louise frowned at that. "Still, she took down Fouquet's golem like it was nothing."

"Indeed," Longueville said. She looked at the sword with hunger in her eyes. "May I see it? If it's not as dangerous as people say, it shouldn't cause any trouble."

"Sure," Louise said. Vin didn't move, didn't take her eyes off of Longueville, didn't even blink. "Um, Vin? You can give her the Sword of Destruction now."

"His name," Vin said, "is Nightblood." Longueville's smile fell from her face and her body grew tense. "And he remembers you, Fouquet."

Longueville stepped back, her eyes wide, and Kirche and Tabitha reached for their wands. "It might be too early to call the stories exaggerations."

"Um, Vin?" Louise said. "What are you talking about? This is Miss Longueville, remember? She came here with us. And what do you mean, _he_ remembers her?"

"Louise?" Kirche said. "You might want to step _out_ of sword-reach from her."

Louise twitched and shot her a glare. "You stay out of this, Kirche. And you can point your wand somewhere else while you're at it! She's my familiar, so I'll handle it."

They weren't evil. They just didn't know what she knew. Vin could distract them, Push on the metal claps they wore to pin their capes on and run Fouquet through. She wouldn't even need to unsheath him first. And if everyone thought that Nightblood drove people insane, then she could kill Fouquet and blame him afterwards.

"Vin?" Louise stepped closer to her, her lower lip trembling. "Please, Vin, put the sword down. Everything will be alright, just … just put it down."

She reached within her, and found that her metal reserves had been depleted. Steel and iron were gone, and she had nothing left but a bit of tin. She felt strong and light like she was burning pewter, but there was no pewter in her stomach. Was it enough? Could she avoid Kirche's and Tabitha's spells long enough to take out Fouquet?

"Destroy evil?" Nightblood asked hopefully.

 _No. Not now._ She shot Fouquet one last glare, turned around, and put the sword back in his box.

WWW

The ride home was silent, and seemed longer than the ride there. Tabitha was as unreadable as ever, and Kirche seemed to half expect Vin to explode in a fit of homicidal glee. Louise sat next to her and seemed to think that Vin needed emotional support, but Vin spent most of the time watching Longueville.

She made sure that she sat between her and Nightblood, but she felt no desire to take him out of his box to talk to him again. Now that he was no longer in her hand, her mind felt clearer and she realized how little of what just happened had made sense.

Somehow, the sword had Soothed away her suspicions, even though she was burning copper. Normally, she would never have used a weapon that everyone had told her would kill her just because she _assumed_ that she could handle it, but when she held Nightblood, she knew things that she had never learned and believed things that never would have passed through her natural skepticism.

And she could talk to him– _it_ , whatever the sword was–and Nightblood could speak directly into her thoughts. Or so she thought. Louise had said that the sword caused madness, and sane people didn't talk to weapons. Could she trust anything she thought the sword had said? And it wasn't just words. The sword made her want things that she had never wanted before, care about … about _destroying evil_ , with no explanation of its moral criteria.

But she didn't think the sword had been lying about Longueville. It might not have been wise to confront her as she had, but she was sure that the woman was Fouquet. She trusted her gut on that.

When they returned to the academy, they went up to the Headmaster's office with Tabitha carrying the box along via a levitation spell. Vin didn't feel bad about that. With all her pewter used up, the lead case would have been too heavy for her anyway.

 _But even without pewter, I felt strong with the sword in my hand._ She shook her head. No matter how powerful the sword was, it wasn't worth it if it could control her more than she could control it.

They entered the office, and Headmaster Osmond greeted them with a smile. "Ah! You did it! Wonderful! You have no idea how much paperwork you've saved me."

Professor Colbert was there too, and his eyes spent an extra moment on Longueville when he smiled. "You got it back, yes?" He looked at the box floating in the air. It was closed, but it was damaged too much to be latched. "The sword is in there, isn't it?"

"Oh, it's in there," Louise said. "It is _definitely_ there."

Colbert's eyes widened. "You didn't _look_ at it, did you?"

"Oh, we did a lot more than look at it," Kirche said. Louise shot her a look which she ignored. "Louise's familiar went and _used_ the freaky thing."

The bald scholar's eyes widened further. "You _didn't_! Founder, you're lucky you didn't try to unsheathe it." Vin hung her head, wishing that she had some brass left, and the others shuffled uncomfortably. Colbert gasped. "What happened?"

Louise sighed. "My familiar used the sword and destroyed Fouquet's golem. That's all. She didn't go insane and try to kill everyone, or anything like that."

"Well," Kirche said, "she didn't try very hard." Vin was starting to understand why Louise hated that girl.

Longueville spoke up. "She seemed convinced that _I_ was Fouquet." She smiled, as though the idea was amusing. "Fortunately, Miss Louise was able to talk her out of it. Apparently the sword's power was overcome by their familiar bond."

Colbert sighed in relief, but Osmond cocked an eyebrow in interest. He knew something. "Vin, was it?" the old man asked, leaning forward in his desk. "When you held the Sword of Destruction, did your familiar runes behave oddly?"

Vin's eyes widened in surprise, but she tried to hide it. "I … I don't remember." _What do you know?_

"They did!" Louise said. "They lit up and were glowing until she put the sword down." She turned to her kindly. "You probably just don't remember that because you were temporarily insane."

Vin smiled outwardly but winced inwardly. Louise meant well, but she was far too trusting.

Osmond and Colbert exchanged a glance. _So they're both in on this, whatever this is._ "Interesting. In the interest of scholarship, is there anything you would like to tell us about the experience? You are, after all, the only known person to survive using the weapon."

 _That I would_ like _to?_ "No, sir."

"Didn't you name it Nightblood or something?" Kirche asked.

Vin grimaced. Tabitha was rapidly becoming her favorite person in the room, Tabitha, who had taken out a book and had started reading it. "Oh, right. That didn't seem important."

"Not important?" Colbert said. "You can never overestimate the value of knowing the names of things, especially artifacts such as this. I shall be certain to replace the label when I return this to the treasury."

"Well," Osmond said, leaning back in his chair, "that's settled, it seems. A pity Fouquet is still free, but all of you have performed spectacularly in regaining the sword. Congratulations, all of you. I hope you have a wonderful time at tonight's ball."

Kirche slapped her forehead. "Of course! The Ball of Frigg is tonight! I completely forgot about it!"

"Yes, yes," Osmond said, smiling. "I'm sure you'll all want to go and get ready and dress up and enjoy yourselves and go, so I won't keep you further."

They left, and Longueville flashed Colbert a smile on her way out. Part of her wanted to follow the woman, but she wouldn't try anything so soon, and she'd be wary of Vin.

Instead, she felt her pockets and gasped after Longueville was out of sight. "I think I may have dropped something. Excuse me, I'll be right back."

She doubled back and went up the steps to the Headmaster's office. She waited outside the door and burned what was left of her tin.

"Hardly a conventional weapon," she heard Colbert say, "but a weapon nonetheless, Headmaster. You can hardly argue with the results."

"Yes," Osmond agreed. "I wish I could have seen it in person, but it appears that we may have found Gandalfr. Anyone else would have ended up crazed, dead, or both."

"I wonder where she got that name–'Nightblood.' Do you think she was able to _speak_ to it?"

"You've done more research on the subject than I have."

"Windalfr could talk to animals, so it makes sense. A bit. Of course, that was no ordinary sword, so we have an enchantment like no other combined with an enchantment that we haven't seen in thousands of years. Should we inform …"

His voice trailed off as Vin used up the last of her tin, and she heard them say nothing else.

WWW

Louise sat down on her bed. She would have looked more authoritative standing up, but _Founder_ she was tired. She hadn't slept well the night before, after her first run in with Fouquet and her own episode of cowardice, and her second encounter with Fouquet's golem and her familiar's brush with madness had been exhausting in every sense of the word.

Part of her wanted to go right to bed, but she needed to resolve something. "So you're a mage," she said to her familiar. Vin seemed smaller than she was, standing with her back to the wall. She always seemed able to do that, but Louise was starting to feel like that was a facade. "Is there a reason you kept that a secret?"

Vin looked at her, as though measuring her and deciding whether to lie to her. She closed her eyes and mouthed a few words silently.

"What was that?" Even if they were both mages, even if it seemed like Vin was a more skilled mage than Louise herself was, she was still her familiar and Louise was still her master.

"Yes," she said. "There is a reason." Louise motioned her to continue, feeling like she had to pull each word from her mouth like a tooth. "I'm not from here, and where I'm from we have different rules."

"And where is that?"

"Another world."

Louise narrowed her eyes. "I'm serious."

"So am I." She didn't sound timid. She didn't sound like she had ever _been_ timid. "In my world, the sun is red, green plants are things of myth, ash falls from the sky, and the nights are full of mists so thick you can barely see your own feet. And we have different rules."

Did she believe her? Vin didn't seem to be lying, but what she said didn't seem possible either. "What rules are those?"

Vin hesitated. "Like here, only the nobles are mages, and there are rules to prevent noble blood and skaa– _commoner_ blood from mixing."

Louise raised an eyebrow at that. Her own father would never sleep with a peasant, but many of the less honorable nobles had mistresses. While not forbidden, any illegitimate child was a lifelong scandal. "How is that?"

She swallowed. "Commoner whores are slaughtered every few weeks, and half breeds are hunted down and killed." Her tone was bitter, but not theatric, as though relating a basic, cruel reality.

Louise blanched. "What? That's–that's horrible! Why would people put up with such _butchery_?"

Vin looked down. "Not everyone does. But those who oppose it don't last long. The rest don't last long either."

"And when you talk about half breeds," Louise said. "That means you, right?"

Vin nodded.

"And when I first summoned you and you were all beat up, that was part of it?"

She nodded again.

Louise stood up and started pacing. She had always thought that there was something off about her familiar. She was so cautious and jumpy, Louise had just assumed that the girl had endured a rough childhood, which wasn't false, but to spend your whole life in a world that forbade you from being born? Well, Vin had never seemed homesick, and now she knew why.

"You didn't use a wand," Louise said. She had been out of it for a bit after getting so close to the Sword of Destruction, but Vin had been practically able to fly, and there had been no wand in sight.

Vin nodded again. "Our magic is different."

"Is it like Ancient magic?" Elves used magic like that, and from what she had read, it was supposed to be incredibly powerful.

Vin shook her head. "I don't know what that is. My abilities are called Allomancy. It draws power from different alloys I swallow."

Louise frowned. So was it based off of potions? "Can you show me?"

"I _can_." Her tone implied that she would rather not.

Well, there was no hurry. Still, this changed things. A commoner summoned as a familiar to serve a mage was a servant like any other, but what was a mage summoned to the same purpose? Now that she knew what she knew, did she have any right to have Vin wash her clothes or sleep on the floor?

No. Even if she was a … a person of mixed heritage, Vin was still a mage. If she could learn magic, then the simplest solution was for her to acquire a title as soon as possible. Fortunately, Louise knew a girl who could help with that. Until then …

"One last question," Louise said. "Have you ever been to a ball?"

WWW

The first ball Vin ever attended, a world away from here, had been incredible, lavish, ridiculous, and beautiful, and it had been made even more so by the knowledge that if anyone had discovered what she was, she would have been killed.

Her second ball was far more relaxed. There were no tattooed Obligators watching everything, no imminent threat of death, and there was even the chance that she might end up having fun.

She wore one of Louise's gowns. They were the same size, and with only two or three balls a year, Louise seemed happy to see one of her twenty formal gowns get used. Louise wore a pink dress a lighter shade than her hair, and Vin had put on a black one. She thought it suited her.

They were greeted by music, lights, and mingling groups and couples of young nobles, with servants gliding among them unnoticed. Not all of the nobles present were dancing–only most of them.

"Is something wrong?" Louise asked, noticing her apprehension.

"I … I don't know how to dance," she said, feeling suddenly foolish.

"Oh. That's no problem. See, the thing you need to understand is that boys have no spine."

"What?"

Louise nodded. "None at all. So if you step on his foot, it's not an accident. Either he deserved it because of something he did or said–you can make it up on the spot, really, he'll believe anything–or it was his fault for sneaking his foot underneath yours."

Vin nodded. Sazed had given her lessons to prepare for her part in Kelsier's plan, but Luthadel's social etiquette was a far cry from what was expected in Tristain.

"Is there anything else?"

"Yes. Would you mind keeping my abilities a secret? My Allomancy?"

Louise gave her a longsuffering look. "Vin, I told you, no one is going to try to kill you here."

"It's not that, it's …" _There's always another secret._ "Today, Fouquet was prepared for you, Kirche, and Tabitha, but she wasn't ready for me. My abilities are going to be far more useful if no one knows about them."

Louise sighed. "Fine, fine, I won't interfere with you and your precious comfort zone. If you'd rather live as a commoner instead of as a mage, that's your decision, but how are you going to explain coming to the ball?"

She shrugged. "I have an exceptionally doting and generous master?"

Louise seemed to consider that. "Well, okay. But it won't make any difference if the others talk. Tabitha, well, she can teach silence to a stone, but Kirche …"

Vin nodded. "I'll talk to her."

"Good luck." Her tone implied that luck wouldn't be enough. Fortunately, Vin had replenished her metal reserves.

She entered the mingling crowd, just another gown in the hall. Just as when she first woke up in this world and dressed herself in Louise's uniform, the people around her didn't recognize her, but didn't see her as a commoner. A boy her age caught her eye and started to approach her, but she burned zinc, Rioting his anxiety and inhibitions until he walked past her as though that were what he had first intended. She searched the crowd for Kirche's distinctive red hair, but she didn't see her.

She did, however, see someone else. Siesta, in her usual maid uniform, walked through the crowd with a tray full of wine glasses which she exchanged for empty ones.

"Siesta!" Vin said, flashing her a smile.

Siesta jumped when she saw her and nearly dropped her tray. "Vin! What are you doing here?" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Does Lady Valliere know you're here?"

"Of course. She did invite me, after all."

Her eyes widened. "Oh! You are so lucky! This is just like in The Goose Girl's Grace. Are you going to dance with anyone?"

"I might," she said. "But first need to speak with someone. Have you seen Lady Kirche around here?"

"Um, she's the one from Germania, isn't she?"

Louise had a few nicknames for her along those lines. "Yes."

"She's over there," Siesta said, pointing to a crowd of young men with their backs turned.

"I don't see her. Are you sure?"

Siesta nodded. "She's like a real life version of Lady White from Snows of Passion, but don't tell her I said that."

"I won't. Thank you."

Siesta smiled. "Just be sure to tell me everything afterwards."

Vin approached the crowd, and sure enough, she found Kirche right in the middle of it. She sat in one of the cushioned chairs that lined the walls with the boys paying attention to her every motion, if not her every word. She wore a dark purple dress with as daring a cut as Vin might have expected from the girl, with a neckline so low it looked like it was being held up by magic. For all she knew, it was.

"Pardon me, Lady Kirche," Vin said politely, slipping into the circle. "But might I have a moment of your time?"

Kirche dropped a dismissive glance in her direction and shook her head. "Okay, first of all, I don't know who you are, but if this is about–" Her eyes widened. "Vin? _Vin_? Founder Brimir, when I talked to Zero about dressing you up, I didn't expect her to … what's going on?"

Vin smiled and curtsied as she had been trained too. "This will take only a moment, I assure you."

Kirche blinked. "Okay. You lot, out. Girl talk, no boys allowed." She had no emotional Allomancy, as far as Vin knew, but Breeze could not have dispersed a crowd as easily. "First of all, you look amazing. Second of all, what?"

"I've done this sort of thing before," Vin explained. "Louise lent me one of her extra gowns. I don't know why she has so many, but that's besides the point. I wanted to talk to you about earlier today. I was wondering if you could understate my role in events from earlier today."

She raised an eyebrow. "So do you want me to say that the golem just collapsed on its own? And I imagine you want me to leave out the part about you using magic entirely."

"If it's not too much trouble." In a more serious tone, she added, "I don't care if you tell people that you did everything, or Tabitha, or if you give Louise all the credit. Just as long as I'm not involved."

Kirche's eyes narrowed. "Did Louise put you up to this?"

Vin cocked her head. "Why would she do that?"

"Well, it would be kind of embarrassing if she got showed up by her own familiar." She looked her up and down. "Of course, she doesn't seem to mind you showing her up in other areas."

Vin stepped closer and dropped the volume of her voice. "I just don't like people talking about me. It's not too much trouble, is it?" She burned brass to make Kirche more complacent.

Kirche sighed. "Fine, fine, it's your obscurity."

"And could you ask Tabitha to do the same?" she asked, still burning brass.

Kirche smiled. "Yeah. Because if she finishes her book she might grow desperate and _talk_ to people."

Vin curtsied again and walked away, satisfied that her work was done. Now, she had the rest of the evening to herself. It was a new experience for her. Her first ball had been part of a job, and before time to herself meant time alone, because being alone meant being safe. But now, she _was_ safe, her enemies left behind in another world. No one was trying to kill her.

But then she saw Longueville passing through the crowd, arm in arm with Professor Colbert, and Vin remembered that someone had already tried to kill her.

She was beautiful in a shimmering green gown, a woman grown among children. Colbert grinned broadly at her side, happy to be with her, not knowing what she was. A disturbance broke out among the dancers, and Colbert departed to settle it leaving Longueville alone.

Longueville turned to her a moment later, as though feeling Vin glaring at her, and she smiled. "Why, good evening, Vin. I was not expecting you to be joining us tonight."

Vin gritted her teeth. She had little patience for formalities with her friends, and wasn't going to dance courtesies with _her_. "Why'd you do it? Why would you steal the sword, and then lead us to it?"

For a moment Vin worried that she would feign ignorance, and she had no patience for that either so she Soothed away her caution and suspicion. Finally, the woman sighed. "Oh, alright. I thought the name sounded impressive, but after I took it I had no idea how to use it. I heard the stories about it, about madness and such, so I thought I'd lead someone else to it so they could try to use it. If they succeeded, I could figure out the trick, and if they didn't, then I'd be no worse off." She shrugged. "Of course, you had to be the one to pick it up, which tells me nothing, with you being what you are."

Vin frowned. "And what am I?"

Longueville raised an eyebrow. "Don't you know? Do you think that anyone could just pick up a weapon like that without consequence? Haven't you noticed anything different since you came here? Do you not know the _name_ written on your hand?"

Vin resisted the urge to look at the markings on her left hand. "I _know_ that I'm going to kill you." Nightblood's words echoed in her mind. _Destroy evil._

Her eyes widened, half in surprise and half in amusement. "What, you're not holding a grudge about earlier, are you? No one got hurt, and your friends all came back looking like heroes, so there's no harm done. If anything, you girls ended up better off for what happened."

"I don't care about that! You _betrayed_ them."

Longueville frowned. "How so?"

"I never trusted you, but _they_ did. After your golem attacked, they made it to their dragon and I wanted them to leave, but they refused because you weren't with them. They refused to abandon you, they _trusted_ you, you betrayed them, and _I_ will kill you."

For the first time, she seemed off balance. "I never asked them to stay. I didn't even expect them to be the ones to volunteer to come after me. I thought that one of the teachers here would have the stomach for it, not a bunch of children!" She closed her eyes for a moment and swallowed. "I'm not going to stay here much longer anyway. I don't care about the sword anymore, and in a day or two I'm going throw a fuss over Osmond's behavior, resign, and you'll never see me again."

"I'd better not, because I won't forget this, or you."

Longueville rolled her eyes. "Would it make any difference if I told you that all the proceeds of my heists were donated to hungry orphans?"

"If I believed you it might. Which I don't."

"Yeah, no one ever does." She turned away, finished with the conversation, but Vin wasn't.

"What _is_ written on my hand?"

"What? Oh. I suppose that not many people can read runes these days. It means Gandalfr."

Vin frowned. She had heard that word before, when Colbert and Osmond were talking about her. "And what is Gandalfr?"

Longueville bit back a smile. "Gandalfr? Familiar of Brimir? _Left Hand of God_? You're not very religious, are you Vin?" She shrugged. "It's for the best, I suppose. After a few sermons, you might end up wanting to kill God too."

She walked away, rejoining with Colbert, and Vin didn't follow her. Longueville didn't seem bothered by her threat … but Vin had delivered it while Soothing her. She extinguished her brass, leaving Longueville to her natural worries and anxieties. Hopefully–now, later, in the dead of night–she would remember Vin's words, and she would feel that icy twinge of fear that Vin had lived with her whole life.

If that happened, even if they never met again, that would be enough.

WWW

A/n I was not planning on making the chapter this long, but this was the first good stopping point. In my last chapter, I added a list of Vin's Allomantic abilities for people who haven't read the books (a tragedy that you must rectify immediately), so I figure I should do the same for Nightblood.

Nightblood is a sword from Warbreaker. That's not the same world as Mistborn, but it's from the same universe, and since Mistborn didn't have any good swords or staffs or anything I could use as an artefact of destruction, I had to branch out a bit. Each world in Brandon Sanderson's universe has its own magic system, and in Warbreaker people could enchant items with specific directions. You could command a rope to grab onto something or command a corpse to stand downwind of you, and so forth.

Under special conditions, an item could be granted sentience as well, and some people got it into their head to create an intelligent sword, and gave it the single command, "Destroy evil." And that's where Nightblood came from.

When you first see Nightblood, one of two things will happen. If you're good, you'll feel sick and want to have nothing to do with him. If you're evil, you'll want to take the sword and kill yourself with him. In Warbreaker, one of the main characters would often throw Nightblood into a crowd of enemies and pick him up when he was done. It doesn't work every time, especially if you know what to expect, but it can still come in handy.

For the most part, the people who use Nightblood keep him sheath, and for some reason manage to kill people just fine that way, either because the scabbard is exceptionally sharp or because Nightblood's magic seeps through. When unsheathed, Nightblood destroys everything he touches in three separate realities, but he requires an incredible amount of energy. In Warbreaker, that energy was Breath, in The Stormlight Archive it would be Stormlight, and here I had Vin use Allomancy. I imagine that an Halkeginian mage could use willpower, but so far none of them have tried it.

Finally, Nightblood can communicate telepathically with the person holding him and can even read his mind. That link goes further, however, and at sometimes it seems like Nightblood is the one wielding the human rather than the other way around. As Gandalfr has the ability to use any weapon, much of that control is diminished, but it's still there. It's kind of like what I imagine would happen if the Mind of God got her hands on Majora's Mask (now that's a crossover I'd like to see happen).

And that's pretty much all you need to know about Nightblood. Thank you everyone who left reviews. It may not seem like a lot on your end, but I always enjoy reading them. Also, as usual, thank you Magery and Stone Mason for editing this chapter. You guys caught errors that I can't believe I've written, which I imagine is one of the drawbacks of writing while asleep.

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to leave a review or a private message, and I'll try to get back to you. Other than that, thanks for reading, and I hope you all have a filling Thanksgiving, should you live in a culture that celebrates that. Otherwise, feel free to stuff yourselves with turkey for the fun of it.


	5. Chapter 5

Beautiful Destroyer

Chapter Five

"I've met children of the streets. They don't conserve. If you come at one of them, they'll use everything they have—every scrap of strength, every last trick—to take you down. They know how close to the edge they walk. Pray you never have to face one of those, pretty boy. They'll rip you apart, chew you up, and make new reserves for themselves out of what you leave behind."

-Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection

In the days that followed, Vin demonstrated and explained her Allomantic abilities to Louise. There was no ideal place to do so—the mistless nights hid little, and their room was too small for coin jumping—but the foreign magic fascinated the noble girl. She liked Ironpulling and Steelpushing the most, but pewter wasn't flashy enough for her and tin was even less so. Vin could only explain bronze, and while she wasn't sure if copper did anything in a world without Seekers, she made sure to burn it whenever she used Allomancy just in case.

Vin kept zinc and brass to herself, though. She was allowed to have a few secrets, and she wasn't planning on using emotional Allomancy on Louise anyway.

In return, Louise began to treat her less like a servant and more like a, well, more like some sort of project. She let Vin sleep in her enormous bed instead of on the floor, eat at the table instead of on the floor, and sit at a desk during classes instead of, again, on the floor. She even encouraged Vin to wear some of her noble clothes instead of her usual shirt and trousers, though the capes remained off limits, which suited Vin just fine. Her Mistcloak beat the noble mantles in terms of style, _and_ it had pockets.

All the while, Louise hinted that she might eventually be able to acquire a title for her, because she had "connections." If Vin had known that Louise's connection was going to float in through the window as silent as a shadow in the dead of night with her hood up over her face, Vin might not have attacked her on sight.

As it was, when Vin heard the window creak open, she burned tin and flared pewter, causing the room to light up to her enhanced eyes. She flung herself at the cloaked figure, barrelling it down to the floor. A silver jeweled circlet rolled across the floor and Vin kicked a dropped staff out of the way. She raised a glass dagger in her left hand … and stopped as the runes on her hand burst into light, blinding her.

"Vin, no!" Louise screamed. Her voice roared in Vin's ears until she extinguished her tin. "Get off of her! Get off of her right now!" Louise clapped her hands, causing the lamps in the room to light themselves, and she got out of bed.

Vin put her dagger away as she stood up, and watched as her runes dimmed. That was the second time they had lit up, first with Nightblood and then now. She wasn't sure what the pattern was—she had held that same dagger several times since she arrived in this world—but she suspected that it was the secret to understanding _Gandalfr_ , which both Osmond and Longueville had called her. When she had asked Louise and Siesta about that name, the only hint she had gotten was that Gandalfr had been one of the familiars of a six thousand year old legendary semi-divine hero named Brimir, which only gave her more questions.

What Louise said next, however, drove all thoughts of runes and myths out of her head.

"I am _so_ sorry, Princess," she said, helping the cloaked figure to her feet.

 _Princess?_ Bloody hell! There were no princesses in the Final Empire, any more than there were kings and queens, but from what Louise had explained to her, Vin may have just attacked the most important person in the kingdom. She abandoned all subtlety and flared brass, Soothing away anything the girl had close to anger and replaced it with … amusement? Sure, she Rioted her amusement.

The princess stood up as her hood fell from her face, and she laughed. "Oh my! I'm fine, Louise, thank you, but I was honestly not expecting that! See, that's the downside to being a princess; everyone is afraid to jump on you." Vin had seen her before, but only at a distance during the Familiar Exhibition. Close up, she seemed … more human than Vin would have expected from Louise's description, but she was certainly pretty and hardly older than Vin herself.

"As well they should be!" Louise said, shooting Vin a glare reserved for those caught murdering infants.

"You used to try to jump on me," the princess said, "before you decided that it was socially inappropriate."

"Your Highness, I was six!"

"And you were fun!" She sat down at Louise's desk. "I suppose I should have knocked or something, but I wanted to surprise you. I daresay it worked!" She shot Vin a smile. Vin had seen plenty of smiles in her life, and most of them said something like, "I'm going to enjoy killing you," or, "You have no idea what's going to happen," but hers seemed genuine. "And I haven't even met you before. I take it you're a friend of Louise?"

Friend? What did people even mean by that? Was that what you called someone when it was a surprise when they betrayed you? "I'm her familiar, your Highness." She bowed low, and when she looked up again, the princess's eyes were wide.

"Familiar? But you look just like a human!"

Vin decided not to be offended by that. "She's an Allomancer," Louise said. "That's what they call mages in the country she's from." Vin shot her a look, which she ignored. Vin had told her about Allomancy in confidence, not so she could tell everyone she met.

"You don't say," the princess said. She smiled again. "Only you could pull off having a mage as a familiar, Louise. I can't tell you how disappointed I was when Fouquet's attack interrupted the exhibition before I got to see what you had summoned."

Louise curtsied low. "You honor me, your Highness."

The princess let out a sigh. "You don't have to be so formal. No one's watching, and I doubt your own familiar is going to report social improprieties."

Louise glanced at Vin for support, which Vin had no idea how to give. "But, well, um, I can be polite for reasons other than fear of embarrassment, can't I?"

"You can also call me by my first name instead of by my title. Honestly, I won't mind."

Louise looked at her as though the princess had asked her to kill her own mother. "Um, if that's what you want … Henrietta."

Henrietta smiled. "See? That wasn't so hard, was it?"

The look on Louise's face suggested that yes, it was hard, but Louise didn't contradict her. "So, was there something that you wanted, your Hi—um, Henrietta?"

Henrietta looked at her with a slightly hurt expression on her face. "What, can't I come and visit an old friend without having some ulterior motive?"

"Of course! I didn't mean to imply otherwise! Forgive me, my door is always open to you. And so is my window. But really, what was it you wanted?"

Henrietta sighed again. "You always could see right through me, couldn't you? Alright. The truth is, I need your help."

WWW

"That is it, Guiche!" Montmorency yelled, loud enough for people on the other end of the hall to hear. "I've had enough of your flirting, your cheating, your canoodling, your shenanigans, and your—your _diddling_! We are through!" She slammed her bedroom door in his face, leaving him alone in the hallway holding a bouquet of roses.

Really, the girl was in love with hyperbole almost as much as she was (secretly) in love with him; while he may have flirted with one or two of his classmates, and maybe even canoodled when he got the chance, he wasn't sure that added up to even one shenanigan, and his actions certainly came nowhere near diddling. Why, he was offended by the very implication!

Still, if he had wanted a simple life, he would have chosen one that didn't include women, and what a sad life that would be! He straightened his collar, fixed his hair, and strolled down the hall with as much dignity as he could muster—which, with a bouquet of roses in his hand, wasn't very much. A man on his way _to_ his lady's room bearing flowers was a wish, a hope, a boundless possibility, but a man going away from said room with the flowers unaccepted was just sad. And what was wrong with Montmorency, anyway? Didn't she know that girls were supposed to _like_ roses?

Founder, he would never understand that girl. Or girls in general. His mother seldom made sense, and mares were always stubborn around him. He was passing Louise's room when he stopped.

When it came to the great and terrible game of love, he knew he had no chance with Louise. Gramont was an excellent name, but Valliere was the most powerful family besides the royal one, and between Louise's temper and (lack of) charms, Guiche had no desire to try. Her familiar, on the other hand, had helped him when Montmorency had broken up with him before, and perhaps she could do so again.

Guiche raised his hand to knock before stopping himself. What did he plan to say? "Louise, I need your familiar to woo my girlfriend for me"? And Vin hadn't even wooed her the first time, she had just been there and Montmorency had … well, she hadn't started making sense, but she had started not making sense in a good way, which was the best a man could hope for when dealing with women.

And what sort of image was he presenting by knocking on Louise's door with flowers in his hand? His reputation, while wholly undeserved, was not unknown to him, and the last thing he needed was more rumors. _No, Louise, I'm not here for you, I'm here for your familiar._ Right. _That_ wouldn't be misinterpreted.

And yet … that sparked an idea in his mind, which, like most of his ideas, was utterly horrible, but he toyed with it all the same. While Vin often dressed like a peasant, she could be surprisingly pretty when she wanted to be. He could admit he was smitten when he first saw her, wearing a school uniform and calling herself Valette. She seemed out of place, looking at each blade of grass like it was a priceless novelty, but less like a commoner wearing her master's clothes and more like … like a princess seeing her kingdom for the first time.

 _I should have asked her to dance._ He had seen her at the Ball of Frigg, wearing a black gown as easily as if she had been born in it, but Montmorency had been in one of her moods again, accusing him of "looking at other girls," as though she expected him to live his whole life wearing blinders like a horse.

He heard Louise's voice muffled through the closed door. "What are you saying?" she said. "Be it the gates of hell, or into the jaws of a dragon, if it's for the princess's sake, I will go!"

Guiche cocked his head. It sounded like Louise was reciting a play of some sort. He hadn't known that she had any fondness for theatre, but she seemed to truly be getting into it.

"There's no way I, the third daughter of House Valliere, could overlook such a crisis for the princess and Tristain!"

Alright, so it wasn't a play she was reciting, at least not one that had ever been performed on stage. Was she roleplaying? Many children enjoyed playing make believe, but Louise had always seemed too serious for games. He pressed his ear against the door. He wasn't eavesdropping—he just wanted to get the facts straight.

"So you'll help me?" a second voice said. "Oh, Louise! You are such a dear friend!"

The second voice wasn't Vin's, but it wasn't one he recognized either. Wait, that wasn't _actually_ the princess, was it? Impossible! The _princess of Tristain_ wouldn't come to the Academy to visit Louise the Zero! She wouldn't visit anyone! That was the point of being a princess, so you could make people come to you! Unless … unless it was some sort of secret. A secret mission? Well, if anyone could keep a secret, it was him, so he pressed his ear harder against the door. Which swung open.

He stumbled, off balance, but he would have caught himself if a surprisingly strong hand hadn't grabbed him by the back of his neck and slammed him face first against the floor. His bouquet fell from his hands, scattering rose petals across the floor.

Louise looked down at him as though he were an exceptionally putrid slug. "Guiche?"

"Guiche?" he heard Vin say from over him. Was she the one holding him down? She had a … remarkably strong grip.

And then the jewel of Tristain, the most beautiful woman in the kingdom, Princess Henrietta herself, looked down at him before glancing at Louise. "So, does she do that to everyone?"

"No," Louise said. "She's just jumpy this evening." She turned back to him. "So what are _you_ doing here?"

He swallowed. He had half a minute to make a good first impression, and his life, nay, the _princess's opinion_ of him hung in the balance. "Well, I was just on my way to visit my girlfriend when I … heard you talking about a secret mission! Can I come with you? Please take me with you. I already know what you're planning, so the only way you can keep me quiet is to take me with you!" Did that sound like blackmail? Oh Founder! It did!

"I wouldn't say that's the only way," Louise said. "I bet we could hide your body without much trouble."

 _And that attitude is the reason why you're single._

Vin, however, loosened her grip on his neck. "If you know what we're planning, why would you want to come with us?"

 _To avoid the issue of hiding my body?_ "Because I, Guiche Gramont, am a loyal son of Tristain, and desire only to be of use to her Highness, Princess Henrietta."

The princess looked down at him, a smile tugging at the corners of her perfect lips. "Do you really mean that?"

He wished he could speak to the princess from a position more dignified than lying face down on the floor. "With all my heart." Truthfully, her status as next in line to the throne had nothing to do with his loyalty. Even without her title, Henrietta was regarded by common consensus to be the most beautiful woman in the kingdom.

"Then I have nothing against you participating in this quest," she said, and his heart flew. It crashed when she turned to Louise. "But you know him better than I, so I'll leave it to your discretion."

Louise looked down at him, and his blood ran cold. Her face was halfway between a smirk and a sneer, not because the situation amused her, although he was sure it did, but because Louise the Zero was the weakest, most incompetent mage in the Academy, and she was in love with power.

"He might come in handy," Vin said.

Louise glanced up at her. "You really think so? He _is_ only a dot-class mage."

Guiche wanted to protest that being dot-classed put him above both her and her familiar, but he doubted that would help his cause.

Louise sighed and turned away. "Oh, why not? If nothing else, there's no harm in having an extra meat shield in the group."

He let out an airy chuckle. "Louise, my dear girl, I'll have you know that my golems are made of bronze."

Louise gave him a flat look. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Guiche began to suspect that, throughout the duration of his quest, the pecking order was not going to be his friend.

"Then it's settled," the princess said. "Arise, Sir Guiche Gramont, and enter my service."

Vin released him completely, but as he stood, he saw the royal princess of Tristain smiling at him, her face as beautiful as the fae spirits from the stories, and his mouth disconnected itself from his brain. "You said my _name_!" he gasped, and as the blood rushed from his head, he fell over in a faint.

He woke up several hours later in a daze with his left cheek stinging. The princess had long since departed, and he found himself being firmly asked to leave.

WWW

The next day, Vin decided that she did not like horses, and horses did not like her. They were stubborn, arrogant, spiteful monsters—the beast Vin rode, a black and white stallion, spent the entire day doing everything in its power to make Vin's life miserable as they traveled to La Rochelle.

Louise, who had managed to pick out a meek, docile animal to ride, suggested that Vin name the horse to help them get along—but even with a name, Torment never grew to like her.

Unfortunately, a fourth person joined the group and replaced Torment as the least pleasant member of the group. He was Viscount Jean-Jacques Francis de Wardes, Captain of the Griffon Knights, and Louise's fiancé. There was nothing wrong with him personally, but Vin didn't know him, she had never even heard of him, and she wasn't involved in a game she wanted to play with strangers.

Also, he was _way_ too old for Louise. Lord Ruler, he was nearly twice her age!

Not that Louise minded. As soon as he showed up, Louise climbed up on his griffon—a creature the size of a wagon, but with wings—and rode the rest of the way to La Rochelle practically on his lap.

The two of them spent the entire trip exchanging his cheap compliments for her awkward blushes, and no one even mentioned the mission until that night when they checked into an inn.

The inn was ostentatious even by noble standards, with polished marble floors and tables, and paintings and stone statues along the walls. They had a private dining room to eat in, but the food was covered in so many spices that even Vin's tin enhanced senses wouldn't have been able to tell if there was poison in it.

"We won't be able to leave until the day after tomorrow," Wardes said. "So it may be our last day to rest before we return."

"It's also our last day to prepare," Vin said. "We'll need an alibi for why we're traveling to Albion." At least, she assumed they did. In the Final Empire, there had been no such thing as another kingdom, but skaa couldn't travel at all legally, and even as Valette, she had needed an excuse for traveling to Luthadel as well as an obvious ulterior motive to hide her true reasons.

Guiche took a long drink of wine. He drank clumsily, just like he spoke. "Why, that's obvious," he said. "If anyone asks us why we're gracing their island kingdom, we'll tell them that it's none of their business."

"No," Wardes said. "Vin has a point. We'll need a story that will incite neither curiosity nor offense. Tourism would be suspicious during a time of war, but if we can't go under the guise of pleasure, we'll travel under the mantle of business. We're traveling to Albion to negotiate a trade agreement with one of the noble houses. We'll have to wait until we know which houses still stand before we can say which one, but a few merchant lords paranoid of corporate espionage will arouse less suspicion than anyone seeking an audience with the prince."

Vin glanced around to see if a third party had overheard. Wardes didn't speak much louder than she had, but he had a clear voice that carried far too well. They weren't in too much danger here in Tristain, but it was still best if they didn't discuss the details of their mission any more than they had to. They needed to acquire a letter from the prince of Albion that could jeopardize Princess Henrietta's marriage to the Emperor of Germania. On top of that, Albion was in the middle of a civil war, and the prince in possession of the letter could end up dead, king, or off the edge of the map in a matter of days.

Wardes narrowed his eyes at Guiche. "Actually, is House Gramont still involved with mercantiles?"

"Well, my father is, first and foremost, a general," Guiche said. "But wars have been rather slow recently, and trade does make for decent passive income."

Wardes nodded. "Good. In that case, the good general is considering an arrangement with one of Albion's noble houses, and has sent his youngest son to oversee his interests and give you some real world experience. I am your bodyguard, Louise is an advisor to make sure you don't make any financial blunders, and Vin is a servant. That story should survive passing scrutiny."

His eyes met hers at the end, as though gauging her reaction. It was a good plan, but that last look made her feel like she was being measured. Well, she had been measuring him since he showed up. Both Louise and Guiche already gave him their support, Louise for their past relationship and Guiche for Wardes' military position, but not Vin. She didn't trust him any more than he trusted her. Kelsier had been foolish to trust people he had just met, but he had been crazy enough to make it work.

Besides, he wasn't here. He was a world away, and probably dead.

"If there are no objections," Wardes said, "we can work out the details in the future. For now, we should get some rest. I've arranged Guiche and Vin to have their own rooms, and Louise and I will be sharing one."

Guiche raised his eyebrows, as surprised as he was impressed, while Louise seemed as shocked as frightened. "I—w-what?" She started to blush. "But Wardes, we're not even m-married yet."

"We're engaged," he said. "Besides, there are some things I need to discuss with you in private."

"She said no," Vin said. "Anything you need to say to her can wait until morning."

Wardes looked at her, then down at the steak knife she gripped in her hand. She couldn't even remember grabbing it, _or_ burning pewter, but there it was, a furnace of power in her stomach, and Wardes was well within arm's reach.

"I suppose I can't fault a Familiar for being protective," Wardes said easily, and for a moment Vin thought he had made the suggestion just to provoke a reaction. "Shall we trade, you and I?"

She considered that. "No. I'll stay with Louise, but you and Guiche should share. We don't want anyone to pick us off one at a time."

"I doubt that will be an issue yet," Wardes said. "But so be it. There is no harm in caution." The corners of his lips twitched in a smile. "Might I at least bid my fiancé good night?" He offered his hand to Louise, who took it eagerly.

Guiche sighed after they left. "I could have had a room all to myself. Oh well. Such is the price of being of service to the crown."

Vin burned a bit of brass and nudged his emotions. "Could you do me a favor?"

His melodrama vanished. "Happily, Vin. What would you like?"

"Could you keep an eye on Wardes? I don't know what he's after, and that makes me uneasy."

He let out a laugh. "If you want, but I could tell you right now. He's after the favor of her Highness, the Princess, just like any royal knight, and if he secures a political union with the Valliére house while he's at it, so much the better. Also, he lives here, so if Tristain isn't conquered any time soon, that's probably something he'd approve of."

 _There's always another secret._ "Thank you. I appreciate it." She got up to make sure the "good night" Wardes was giving Louise didn't turn into a "good morning" when Guiche stopped her.

"Oh, by the way," he said. "Um, I don't know how to say this, but, uh, oh Founder." He took a deep breath. "Montmorency and I broke up again."

"Oh." Why bring that up now? "I'll fix it for you when we get back."

"Will you? Lovely! But, um, that's not what I was getting at. See, the thing is, I'm single now."

"Yes? So?"

"So … so I'm _single._ Things could theoretically … happen."

"Things that Montmorency wouldn't need to know about?" Vin guessed.

His eyes lit up. "Exactly!"

She gave him a flat look. "Fine. If you want to flirt with the barmaids and waitresses until we get back, I won't tell anyone, and I doubt Louise cares one way or another."

He blinked. "Right! That is, that is exactly what I was getting at. Well, good night, Vin."

WWW

The room had one door, two windows, two dressers, one writing desk, a sofa, a bookcase, and a bed big enough for five. The door seemed sturdy enough, and Vin locked and latched it.

"I could have handled that, you know," Louise said, sitting on the bed. "I don't need you to protect me. Well, I do, but not from him. I'm perfectly capable of telling him no when he needs to be told no."

"Do you trust him?" Vin moved on to the bookcase. The shelves were lined with books. She couldn't read in the language of this world, so she couldn't tell what the books were about, but none of them looked used.

"Well, yeah, of course I trust him. We've been engaged for ten years now."

Ten years. Louise would have been six at the time. Vin wondered if she'd had more sense back then. "Who decided that?"

"Our parents did," Louise said. "I think he was supposed to end up my sister, Cattleya, but she got sick and I was next in line. He's always been very good about it, though, and never complained about ending up with me instead. Not that I'm being self-depreciatory, of course, but if you met my sister, you'd understand."

Vin burned pewter to move the bookcase forward and examined the wall behind it. She tapped it with her knuckles, but her tin-enhanced ears didn't pick up anything hollow about the sound. "So what do you know about him?"

"Um, he's the captain of the Griffon Knights. And he's a Viscount. And … he has a neat hat."

Vin gave her a flat look. "That's it? Ten years, and that's it?"

"What? He keeps to himself," Louise said. "That doesn't make him a bad person. Besides, none of that matters, because he has a _reputation._ I don't know how things work where you're from, but here, we nobles are watched our entire lives, and everything we do is remembered until the day we die. There are plenty of lesser aristocrats who sit on a pile of half-buried scandals, accusations of corruption, servants' rumors and so forth, but Wardes is _clean_. Besides, he's a knight. You can trust knights."

Vin cocked her head. "Why?"

Louise blinked. "Because … you just can. Knights are trustworthy. That's one of the rules."

Vin frowned. "I'm not sure trust works that way." _It's the ones who try to make you trust them that you have to watch out for,_ Reen had always said.

Louise rolled her eyes. "You're just being paranoid."

"I'm being cautious," Vin said. "People are going to try to kill us in Albion. I need to know who I can turn my back on." Louise might sacrifice her if she needed to—anyone would if pushed far enough—but Vin was useful to her, and the girl knew it. Guiche didn't seem reliable, but neither did he seem treacherous, so as long as she kept an eye on him she should be fine. The only thing she knew about Wardes was that he was competent and probably strong enough to get them all killed if she wasn't careful.

"Cautious," Louise said. "Right. So why are you moving the furniture around and tapping on the walls?"

She hesitated. "I'm checking for secret passageways." She never slept in new places without checking if she could help it.

Louise stared at her and shook her head. "Yeah. I'm going to bed."

WWW

The next morning, Wardes came by early to invite Louise on a walk. Vin didn't try to stop them, not that she could have if she tried, but she followed them just in case. She couldn't get close enough to hear them with the sound of the crowd drowning out everything, but if he tried anything, she'd be there.

He didn't, though. They just talked and walked and talked some more. When she found out what they were talking about, Vin wished she had listened better.

"Vin!" Louise called after they returned to the inn. Her face was flushed and she looked cheerful, giddy even. "Wardes and I were just talking about you."

 _That's not good_. "Oh?"

Louise nodded. "Long story short, he wants to spar with you." She grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the door.

"What? What did you tell him?"

"Oh, you know, that you're a mage with a different sort of magic and stuff. He was really interested in Allomancy and he wanted to see for himself."

She gritted her teeth. "I told you that in confidence." Just like with the princess, Louise had spilled her secret without hesitation.

"And I told him that in confidence, so we're all confident people. Don't give me that look, Vin. We're all in this together, and Guiche isn't going to be much more useful than me in a fight, so if we get in trouble, it will be you and Wardes, and that means you'll have to learn to trust each other."

"Trust him? I don't even know him! _You_ don't even know him!"

"Yes I do. He's my boyfriend."

"No he's someone your parents picked out. You met him for the first time this decade yesterday."

Louise rolled her eyes. "You never trust anyone."

"And I'm still alive!"

"Eventually you'll need someone to have your back."

"That's what walls are for. Why is this so important to you? Why do you care if I fight your betrothed?"

"Because I'm trying to impress him! He's a square-class mage, a Viscount, and Captain of the Griffon Knights, and what am I? Louise the Zero, the girl who failed at everything she ever tried except one: summoning you. The familiar is the measure of the mage, and as long as you keep on masquerading as a commoner, Wardes will never see me as anything more than a failure."

Vin blinked. "That's it?" Part of her had thought—had hoped—the Louise had wanted her to open up for the same reason Kelsier had, that she had the same, irresistible insanity that had made so many put their faith in the Survivor of Hathsin. But, no. She was just trying to use her.

"What do you mean, that's it? You can do things nobody has ever thought of, Vin. You don't know what it's like to have the world expected of you and be nothing but a joke your whole life!"

No. All Vin had growing up was a brother who would beat her for talking to strangers and threaten to sell her to the brothels if she complained. _You can't trust anyone._

Louise dragged her outside to a courtyard where Warde stood waiting. "So you agreed to come," he said. "Good. I look forward to seeing if you are as skilled as Louise claims."

 _You still think you can trust people, but you can't._

"Oh, she is," Louise said. "And I'll know if you're holding back, Vin, so don't let me down."

 _Anyone will betray you._

Guiche wandered out of the inn to join them. "Good morning, everyone. Is … something happening?"

 _She didn't mean to_ , Vin told herself.

"We're having a sparring match," Louise said.

 _That doesn't matter,_ Reen replied.

"Oh, that's nice," Guiche said. "Who's fighting? Wait, Wardes and your familiar? Are you insane? He's a mage and she's a peasant!"

 _You trusted her with your secrets, and she betrayed you._ Kirche and Tabitha probably had too. By asking them not to talk, Vin had only revealed where she was vulnerable.

"No she's not."

 _She's using you now._

"What?"

 _And when she uses you up …_

"Just watch."

… _she'll abandon you, like I did._

"Alright, are you two ready?" Louise called out.

 _And you'll keep on falling for the same old trick …_

"Fight!"

… _until you have nothing left to lose._

WWW

A/n I was not planning for so long a hiatus, but I was distracted by … less important things. Anyway, here's the next chapter, including what I love most about writing: the cliffhanger! Yeah, I'm a terrible person.

As usual, thank you to everyone who left reviews. If it weren't for you, I would keep these stories in my head, and they'd never get anywhere. Thank you also Magery and Stone Mason, for editing this chapter, as with so many others.


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